I had many awfull experiencies with the Prepaid Debit Card. Many merchants donāt accept it (car rental, online purchase, etc.), and when they do, it is a pain in the ass to get you money back if you have given a guarantee. Many times as the merchant unlock the deposit (with proof sent by email), Revolut pretend they have nothing new and continue to block your money for more that a week. This is not acceptable.
They say you can use Revolut as your primary account, but I do not advise to do so. I am disappointed, and will go to a REAL bank for my main activities.
2 Likes
Never had a problem using it for online purchases.
2 Likes
Try to book a car with itā¦
1 Like
I donāt count booking a car as an online purchase. 
1 Like
This is well established that car rentals usually donāt accept prepaid cards for security deposits. You should be able to pay the rental fee without problems, though. Most car rentals explain this on their website, this example is from Hertz:
The use of a debit / prepaid card is ONLY accepted for online prepayment, as we do NOT accept debit / prepaid cards as a guarantee.
The refund process or the process for releasing such a deposit also doesnāt differ much from credit cards. With credit cards you just donāt notice it because thereās no account balance that reflects it. Security deposits reduce a card limit, but might not show up as a purchase.
Having said this, Revolut is indeed slightly slower than some competitors in handling refunds, but not by a large margin. At least thatās my experience.
While weāre on the topic: prepaid cards also donāt work in situations where the POS terminal doesnāt have an online connection: on trains, planes, some vending machines ā¦
4 Likes
1 time in foreign country I encountered hotel which happily accepted payment with normal credit card, but as security deposit wanted only cash. No idea why.
It is a card on the cheap 
Renting a car is definitely a special domain of card payments. In many cases renting a car requires a credit card and not a debit card.
Hotels may require a security deposit and as far as Iām concerned the same rule can apply.
So overall this doesnāt seem to be an issue with Revolut.
I have already payed 500+ of times at merchants and in online stores and never ever faced a problem. So without knowing the specifics (which goods / merchants giving you a problem) its hard to say if its because of Revolut or something else.
2 Likes
I suggest to always check informations available on the car rentalās website. They know this is a nuisance and usually provide informations about it. Many car rentals in the UK do accept debit cards for small and medium sized cars, for example. (Debit, not prepaid!) ā They usually explain their policy about this on their website.
1 Like
I am happy how it works
Its the same with a hotel
Take a week or 2 before the money from the deposit are released
My standard bank card, mastercard debit, its take 31 days
So happy with revolut its only 1 week
Are the regular Revolut accounts cards prepaid?
(I mean the personal Revolut account)
Iām using the Revolut Business for my business and only discovered last night the card is actually a prepaid card (it has prepaid printed on the back of it, I never noticed, I always assumed it was a debit card).
Anyway Google Ads and Facebook Ads both wonāt accept my business card.
So how am I supposed to pay for advertising for my business? Iām looking now at alternatives but both Google and Revolut Business support teams canāt help me so the only other option seems to be to just move my business to another bank that doesnāt use these lower tier prepaid cards and who uses real debit cards instead.
Manā¦ Iām so upset today because I realise all this time is wasted and I have more wasted time ahead of me to sort this mess out.
Iām going to stop using Revolut Business (which is really sad cus I love everything else about Revolut Business, really!!!) and now Iām thinking should I also avoid Revolut Personal if the card is also a prepaid??
I donāt see prepaid written on the personal card anywhere (or debit for that matter!) so Iām thinking probably all Revolut cards are prepaid cardsā¦ Doh!
2 Likes
All personal Revolt cards have the word Prepaid printed on them. Very small and sometimes you hardly can see it, but itās there.
3 Likes
Why would anyone use a prepaid card, or even a debit card, for guaranteeing hire cars or hotel stays? A prepaid card is totally unsuitable for this. If itās money that you never intend to become a charged transaction, only a temporary block, then always use a credit card so that someone elseās money, and not your own money, becomes temporarily blocked. You can of course use Revolut to pay for the hire car or hotel stay, i.e. the money that you intend to pay.
With just a little thought before transacting, this neednāt become a problem.
1 Like
revolut for business lets you give cards to your employees, set limits, and select which balances (currencies) they can use. the idea is awesomeā¦ except that your employees wonāt be able to use them because of the mentioned reasonsā¦ so, they are absolutely useless unfortunately.
for personal you surely use a credit card for that purpose, but itās not the same for businesses.
Iām not an expert on this topic at all, butā¦ any chance that Revolut will work thru Curve for your purposes? (I really dont know, so dont blaim me if this is stupid idea. But if this is a great idea, then dont forget buying me a beer 
)
1 Like
the issue with curve is that to make it work, 1) you need a curve card for every employee, 2) they would need to change the currency of the underlying card every time to prevent curve itself to DCC.
Itās not a stupid idea. Curve cards were previously card type ādebitā and card level āprepaidā, so it wouldnāt make any difference, but I see that my latest Curve cardās level is now āstandardā. So this might now work.
1 Like
You probably have investigated this already and I havenāt. Nonetheless I would take a look at Curveās business options as I can imagine easily that it can handle the problem you are facing with. (Of course I also can easily imagine that it canāt, but its a bit easier to imagine that it can.)
(yeah, its not that easly to talk me off of a beer when I have a hunch that its coming 
)