Clear the standing charges first
A travel card that costs nothing to hold leaves more room for the things that actually happen on a trip. Wise charges an annual fee of £0 and a monthly fee of £0. Bitpanda charges an annual fee of €0 with a monthly fee of €0. The Starling Personal Account Debit Card has an annual fee of £0.
Neither Wise nor Bitpanda is built around a subscription, and both sit in the same band: a card with no annual fee model. Across the cards we rate, monthly fees run €0 to €148.23, so the first thing to check is what your own account type would attract rather than assuming the headline figure is the whole cost.
One practical note on those numbers. The Bitpanda fees are set in euro while the Wise and Starling figures are set in sterling, so compare like with like before deciding which looks cheaper on paper.
Then the cost of spending abroad
Foreign exchange is where travel cards differ most. Foreign exchange fees across the cards we rate run 0% to 7%. Wise's is 0.1% and Bitpanda's is 0%. A rate at the top of that range costs far more over a fortnight abroad than any standing charge will add up to.
Wise also holds balances in 40 currencies and is listed for multi-currency and travel use, which suits a trip that moves through several currencies. Bitpanda is listed for multi-currency use too, alongside crypto, custodial holdings and a virtual card.
The practical test is simple: work out what you would spend in the local currency of each stop, then price that spend at each card's foreign exchange fee. The card with the best cash machine allowance can still be the wrong choice for a trip where nearly everything is paid by card.
Cash machines abroad
Withdrawing cash is where a cheap card can stop being cheap. Wise gives an ATM free allowance of £250, and free allowances across the cards we rate run €0 to €1,743.27.
Ask what happens beyond the allowance and what the machine itself charges, because a single out-of-network withdrawal can undo the savings on a low foreign exchange fee. If something does go wrong, Wise support runs through a help centre, email, chat and phone, which matters at short notice in a different time zone.
Who each card suits
Wise is a debit card, listed for business and kids as well as travel, and it has been trading since 2011. That points it at a traveller who wants a plain spending account with a low cost of holding and a known foreign exchange rate.
Bitpanda pays back rather than charging for a reward: a rewards rate of 1% cashback on crypto asset spending, a rewards type of cashback, worth 1% on crypto asset spending. It runs on the Visa network, which covers most terminals abroad.
One question to settle before you commit. Bitpanda's card is listed as a debit card by one source and as a credit card by another, and the product is described as custodial. Ask directly which balance a tap to pay draws from, because that decides whether it works as your main travel card or only as a second one.
If a balance can carry over
A travel card is rarely the card you want to be carrying debt on. The Starling Personal Account Debit Card quotes an APR of 15% alongside an annual fee of £0, so where a balance can be carried, the interest rate is the cost that matters rather than the holding cost.
Treat that number as a reason to clear the balance in full, and to keep a second card in reserve in case one is declined at a terminal.
Who stands behind the account
The legal entity is the first thing to check. Wise trades as Wise Europe SA and Bitpanda as Bitpanda GmbH, and those are the names on any card or statement you are given.
The permissions behind them can be looked up. Wise appears with the National Bank of Belgium under 0713629988, as a payment institution with the National Bank of Belgium under PSD_PI BE_NBB!0713629988, with the Central Bank of Lithuania under PSD_EMI LT_LT_BL_304940980, and with the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission under MiCA CASP 549300ET4IUR6RCZOL84. Bitpanda GmbH appears with the Austrian Financial Market Authority under MiCA CASP 5493007WZ7IFULIL8G21, the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority under MiCA CASP 9845005X9B7N610K0093, the Malta Financial Services Authority under MiCA CASP 984500DEID7B03J77118, and the Austrian Financial Market Authority as a payment institution under PSD_EMI AT_FMA_54966.
A licence tells you who supervises the account. Any protection arrangement for the money sits in the account terms rather than in the licence, so read those before you travel and before you load the balance you intend to spend.
Run the comparison in this order
Write the same five lines for every card and the choice gets easy: the holding fee, the foreign exchange fee, the cash machine allowance, the reward rate and the licence. Only then add what matters for your trip, such as whether you need a euro balance or a virtual card.
Start with our travel cards shortlist, then read the full reviews for Wise, Bitpanda and the Starling Personal Account Debit Card. If your trip calls for a single-market account rather than a multi-currency one, bunq and bunq Spain are worth putting through the same five lines.