Today I learned Wise has embarked on some new partnerships that can save Wise debit card users extra money.
Wise (formerly TransferWise) is a company that offers a multi-currency account that helps you avoid paying through the nose when you make currency conversions.
I’ve been using the Wise multi-currency account for several years. It saves me a lot of money so I recommend it to fellow travellers based on the strength of my personal experience.
I also recommend Wise to people who work with multiple currencies or regularly have to do transactions that involve currency exchanges. I work with several currencies each week so, again, I base my recommendation on personal experience.
If you want to know more about the Wise multi-currency account, I’ve written a review that should help you understand how it works.
The Wise multi-currency account debit card is an optional extra. You can move money between currencies without it but when you are travelling, a Wise debit card can help you stretch your money a lot further.
Apart from making it cheaper and easier to pay for products and services in foreign currencies, a Wise debit card can help you to avoid fees when making ATM withdrawals.
To be honest, many of the new discounts and rewards probably won’t interest regular travellers but a few of them might.
For example, the average traveller may not have much use for a 10% discount on items from Wolf & Badger or a 15% discount from Patch.
Wolf & Badger is very expensive. You can pay over €300 for a shirt. Patch is an online store that sells houseplants. Although it’s always nice to see opportunities for discounts, these two are unlikely to interest nomads or other individuals engaged in long-term travel.
However, Wise has also partnered with Booking.com and Alternative Airlines. These partnerships are a little more interesting.
Wise customers who use their debit cards to book accommodation via Booking.com can get 10% cashback. Customers who use their cards to book flights with Alternative Airlines can get a £10/$10 discount.
To be honest, unless Alternative Airlines was already cheaper than the alternative options, a £10/$10 discount wouldn’t sway me to book.
When I saw the offer of a 10% discount with Booking.com, I expected it would only be for certain accommodation options. Probably the most expensive ones. I was surprised to discover I was wrong. It’s a discount on all accommodation, right across the board so that’s pretty good. It will be interesting to see if Wise arranges any additional discounts for its debit card users. You can check out the full list of discount options on the Wise Debit Card promotions page.