Velocity Global Wallet has announced changes to its prepaid travel card. Broadly, there are two sets of changes coming into effect from 4 May 2020.
Firstly, there will be a reduction in the number of points you earn on domestic transactions. In addition, there will be a reduction in some of the fees charged to account holders.
Velocity Global Wallet
As a quick reminder, Velocity Global Wallet Visa is a prepaid travel card. The card is issued in conjunction with your Velocity account, The account allows holders to load multiple currencies onto the card. With these funds, cardholders are able to make purchases worldwide.
Velocity reduces Domestic Points earn
It is the change in earn rate that may affect most cardholders. For cardholders using the Velocity Global Wallet card in Australia, there will be a reduction of 25% on the number of points you can earn.
At present, you earn 1 Velocity Points for each $3 you make on eligible purchases in Australia. On 4 May, this will reduce to one Velocity Points for each $4 you spend.
If the reduction in earn was bad enough, Velocity Global Wallet is also tightening the definition of an eligible transaction. Generally, you will now only earn points on transactions in the Travel, Entertainment, and General Shopping categories.
This will certainly exclude government transactions. It also excludes transactions with betting and lottery merchants.
Unfortunately, there is no simple way to know a merchants category. This may cause a few surprises with a transaction not earning points. It may be the only way to find out is to make a transaction and see if points are issues.
Reductions in Fees
Velocity Global Wallet is also reducing some fees associated with the account. The changes will see the following fees removed:
- 2.25% currency conversion fee when spending in a currency other than one held on deposit
- $10 fee for a supplementary card
- $1.95 ATM cash withdrawal fee
While it will not be removed, the inactivity fee is being tweaked. At present, this is a flat fee of $1.95 per month. This will change to a fee of 0.5% of the account balance, with a minimum charge of $1.
If you have an Inactive account, the change will see you pay a greater fee if your balance is $390 or more. If your balance is less than $390, you will see a reduction in this fee.
