Relax and enjoy your holiday – with free cash worldwide

Who wouldn’t want to relax and enjoy themselves on holiday? When you’re on holiday, all you should be thinking about is what beach you’ll pick for your next tanning session or what kind of ice-cream you’re going to stuff yourself silly with – not the fees you might be charged when you make payments or withdraw money! Just for you, neon metal has done away with the last vestiges of those irritating fees when you’re abroad. In this article, we’ll explain what this means for you and what you’ll still need to keep an eye on.

What benefits does neon metal give me abroad?

With neon metal, we want to make travel as easy as possible for you. That’s why for you we’re also getting rid of neon’s last remaining charge for transactions abroad. When you run out of coins and are tempted to go to the next ATM, you normally pay 1.5% per cash withdrawal with neon. With neon metal, you no longer have to pay this fee. You can withdraw money for free, no matter where you are in the world. For card payments, you anyway benefit of the Mastercard reference rate without surcharge or fees. So, nothing prevents you from having carefree holiday.

What fees there are abroad in general, we explain in the following and give you a few tips. Read them carefully, as tips 2 & 3 apply to you, too. These fees are from the ATM themselves, we cannot prevent them even with neon metal.

(By the way, in Switzerland you can withdraw money with neon metal 5 times instead of 2 times per month for free – at any ATM of your choice. The free withdrawals are limited to 5 because we have to pay something per withdrawal you do. There is no margin left for us here.)

What fees are charged with your credit card abroad?

When you use your credit card to make a payment or withdraw money overseas, there are basically two kinds of fees you can be charged: overseas usage fees and exchange rate spreads. Our bank fees abroad blog explains the nitty-gritty of how they’re calculated.

How does neon handle this, generally speaking?

At neon, we’re making the whole thing even easier, getting rid of both fees for card payments abroad (and for overseas online shops, too!). In other words, if you make a payment with your neon card when you’re on holiday, you won’t pay any transaction fees, and we’ll calculate the money for you at the Mastercard reference rate without any surcharge. Read about why we’re doing this here.

Tip 1: Always pay in the local currency of the country, not in CHF.

Then there’s just the issue of cash. Beware of the hazards lying in wait for you. Specifically, there are three to watch out for: 1) a flat fee charged by the ATM, 2) the ATM’s exchange rate spread, and 3) the fee charged by your own bank. With neon, you normally pay a fee of 1.5% of the amount you withdraw. This is dropped for you with neon metal. We don’t charge an exchange rate spread on this, either. We have little control over the two other charges, but here’s some advice so you can avoid them or keep them as low as possible:

Tip 2: Flat fees are particularly common at small ATMs, so look for an ATM run by a major bank.
Tip 3: Withdraw cash in the local currency; don’t have the ATMs convert it to CHF.

You want to know in more precisely? We explain everything you need to know about cash withdrawals abroad here in detail.