A bank card for travelers and trips abroad

Which bank card should you choose when setting off on a trip abroad? We did a detailed analysis and picked the best bank cards for a traveler for withdrawing cash and paying on trips abroad.

Choosing the best bank card for travelers and trips abroad

What criteria will we use to choose a card for traveling abroad? It's actually all very simple: we need to earn the maximum % on the money held in our accounts and bring all the various fees down to zero.

After a detailed analysis of the banking market, we chose the following banks and cards for ourselves:

Tinkoff Bank, the Tinkoff Platinum card (or the All Airlines card), ruble and foreign currency

• no fee for account maintenance;
• free interbank transfers;
• 8% annual interest on the balance, paid monthly (1% on euros/dollars);
• An advanced online bank that lets you list the countries you plan to visit, so that the security service doesn't consider transactions made there suspicious and doesn't block the card.
• A reliable bank, one of the top banks in Russia.

A very loyal and customer-focused bank that meets clients halfway in disputes.

The Kukuruza World card (issued at “Euroset” stores)

• no fee for account maintenance;
• the only bank card that withdraws cash at the Central Bank rate on the day of authorization with no extra fees.

And, of course, Sber cards, as one of the most reliable banks, just in case.

Paying by bank card abroad and withdrawing cash

Note that none of the banks above charge any fee for withdrawals at ATMs (for a single withdrawal of more than 3000 rubles / 100 USD) or for payments with their bank cards. Fees may be set by the banks that own the ATMs, and in most cases conscientious banks warn you about the fee amount before you withdraw money. Conversion from rubles to dollars is done at the bank's rate on the day of the transaction (you can check it on the bank's website), and from dollars to the currency of the withdrawal/payment at the MasterCard rate, which you can find on the MasterCard website

How it all works

1. We keep most of the money at Tinkoff, where it earns the highest interest.
2. We withdraw foreign currency cash from Tinkoff and make all foreign currency top-ups to it.
3. We withdraw ruble cash from Kukuruza.
4. We move money to Kukuruza with free interbank transfers from Tinkoff specifically for ruble withdrawals.

P.P.S. In case the bank's license is revoked, a power of attorney to manage the bank accounts (or a general one) is made out to a trusted person, and if such an event happens, the trusted person will receive all the money plus all the interest accrued as of the date the license was revoked in cash from the DIA within 2 weeks.

That's the scheme we ended up with. I hope you find it useful ;)