protection

You might consider yourself a seasoned traveller, somebody who obsessively plans holidays down to fanatically pinned maps and destination-appropriate music playlists. But even the most globetrotting gadabout can fall prey to poor money management.

Simple mistakes such as failing to gen up on exchange rates or pressing the wrong currency button on a foreign ATM can result in you leaking cash that could be spent splurging on a ritzier hotel room or trading in a beer for a jazzed-up martini.

From using the best bank card to maximising reward benefits, here’s how having a savvy approach to your money while overseas is the secret to stress-free travel.

1 Pack the right plastic

It’s all too easy when sitting on the beach, piña colada in hand, to forget that every time you tap your debit card on that contactless terminal, you could be charged between 2.75% and 2.99% of the transaction value of whatever you’re buying, depending on the card provider. Every coffee, every snack, every bus trip you pay for, it’ll all mount up until you’re left with a monster bill by the end of the holiday.

The best option? Switching to a fee-free credit card such as the Barclaycard Rewards card*, which is 100% fee-free for purchases and ATM withdrawals.

*Representative example. 28.9% APR representative (variable); purchase rate 28.9% p.a. (variable); based on a £1,200 credit limit. The approval of your application depends on financial circumstances and borrowing history, so do the terms you may be offered. The interest rates may differ from those shown. T&Cs apply.

2 Protect yourself against fraud

Holidays relax people. That’s their USP. They offer a guard-lowering calm, making us brave enough to Macarena away until the small hours – but this also means we may share bank details over unsecured networks in hotel lobbies, or fail to notice somebody hovering over our shoulder, quietly taking down our card details.

For your peace of mind, Barclays has fraud protection systems that are in place 24/7 to protect your account. If they spot something suspicious, you’ll be alerted straight away.

And if you misplace your card, you can freeze it in the app so that nobody can use it until you find it. Even better, if you report your card lost or stolen while you’re abroad, Barclays will arrange for emergency cash to reach you within three days. They’ll also send a replacement card to your home address.

3 Set a daily budget

Ah, the wretched B-word. But allocating yourself a predetermined allowance each day will leave you with more money as your trip reaches its denouement, ensuring you end your vacay on a high note. A rough yardstick is to estimate how much you’ll be spending on costs such as food, accommodation, transport and activities, and adding an extra 30% on for extras/emergencies. Then divide it by the number of travel days to arrive at a daily limit.

Other belt-tightening measures include skipping lunch by filling your boots with the hotel breakfast buffet, seeking out street food, or scouring the reviews/social media to find a restaurant on the backstreets away from the tourist zones, which could slash your bill and deliver a much more authentic experience.

To help you budget like a pro, set up a savings goal¹ in the Barclays app¹, or turn on the spending alert so you can stay on top of your balance at all times.

4 Avoid pesky foreign transaction fees

Foreign holidays are rarely ever cashless experiences: having some local coins and notes is essential. However, charges at international ATMs can be eye-wateringly expensive: as high as £14.95 when taking out £250 on your credit card, according to a comparison site (tip: always select “without conversion”).

Sidestep that with a fee-free card such as the Barclaycard Rewards credit card*, where ATM withdrawals can be made without any extra fees.

Also, never leave it until the last minute to get foreign currency from an airport bureau de change. The “walk up” exchange rates at these desks tend to err on the pricey side: ordering the money you need online through your bank before travelling will be at much more wallet-friendly rates. Plus – if they’re like Barclays – the cash could be delivered to your home free of charge² too.

_*Representative example: 28.9% APR representative (variable); purchase rate 28.9% p.a. (variable); based on a £1,200 credit limit. The approval of your application depends on your financial circumstances and borrowing history, so do the terms you may be offered. The interest rates may differ from those shown. T&Cs apply.

5 Make clever currency choices

It’s a dilemma we’ve all faced on holiday. After finishing dinner, the waiter brandishes a card reader, asking: “Do you want to pay in local currency or pounds sterling?”

Generally, the best advice is to pay or withdraw in the local currency, as it’ll mean your UK bank will calculate the conversion rate. Opt to pay in pounds and the local bank will do the conversion – usually at less favourable rates.

6 Invest in travel insurance

The safety net of travel insurance might make common sense (we’ve all read horror stories about British holidaymakers who failed to get it, then forked out thousands of pounds for a medically-assisted flight home, right?), but ploughing through endless comparison sites to find the right quote isn’t fun.

In many cases, it’s best to take heed from experts. The Barclays Travel Plus Pack³ (£22.50 a month) was named a Which? Best Buy travel insurance in June 2024. The policy was lauded for its £10,000 missed departure cover and being one of the few policies to cover pandemics.

As with all travel insurance, always check the details. Some policies may not include children or pre-existing medical conditions; others won’t include extreme sports such as bungee jumping, parkour or tightrope-walking.

7 Use the tech at your disposal

Travelling to the EU or US this summer? Then consider Barclays travel wallet⁴ (available via the Barclays app⁵), which enables you to buy Euros and US dollars before travelling – which you can then spend with your regular debit card while away. Because you’ve purchased the currencies already, you’ll enjoy fee-free transactions during your trip too⁶.

Then, once you’ve arrived back home, you won’t be saddled with lots of coins destined to end up in a drawer, because Barclays will buy back any foreign currency left over at 0% commission.

To find out more about keeping on top of your travel finances with Barclays, visit barclays.co.uk/travel/

_{1 You must have a Barclays or Barclaycard account, have a mobile number and be aged 16 or over to use the Barclays app. Terms and conditions apply.}

_{2 £2,500 is the maximum amount that can be ordered and delivered to an individual residential address in a 90-day period. Please note, you cannot exceed £5,000 per person within a 90-day period.}

_{3 Terms, conditions, exclusions and eligibility criteria apply. You must have a Barclays current account, be 18 or over and hold this product for at least six months from the date of purchase – then you can cancel at any time.}

_{4 T&Cs apply. You need to be 16 years or over to access this product or service using the app.}

_{5 You must be 11 or over to use the app. T&Cs apply.}

_{6 No transaction fees apply when paying with Euros and US dollars from your travel wallet. There is a 2.75% margin applied when purchasing your currency. If you pay in British pounds on your debit card while abroad, a transaction fee will still apply.}

May 30 (UPI) — Legal status in the United States can be lawfully revoked for more than a combined 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Friday.

The court only issued an unsigned dissenting opinion acknowledging the federal government can move ahead with its Termination of Parole Process for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, commonly referred to as CHNV.

In March, President Donald Trump directed the Department of Homeland Security to revoke the legal status of 532,000 migrants under sponsorship programs, primarily from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

The migrants were granted legal protected status under former President Joe Biden‘s administration, a program Trump has attempted to wind down amid legal challenges.

A federal judge in Massachusetts last month granted a temporary order blocking Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem from revoking previously-granted parole to the protected migrants.

Earlier this month, Trump asked the Supreme Court to intervene and allow the government to remove protected status.

On Thursday, Boston-based U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani ordered the Trump administration to restart processing applications under the migrant program.

Friday’s Supreme Court ruling returns the issue to the lower courts, giving the Department of Homeland Security the ability to stop processing extension requests from migrants with current legal protections under CHNV while the legal process plays out.

“The Court has plainly botched this assessment today. It requires next to nothing from the Government with respect to irreparable harm. And it undervalues the devastating consequences of allowing the Government to precipitously upend the lives and livelihoods of nearly half a million noncitizens while their legal claims are pending,” the unsigned dissenting opinion states.

Two of the high court’s liberal judges, Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor, dissented from the majority.

“Even if the Government is likely to win on the merits, in our legal system, success takes time and the stay standards require more than anticipated victory. I would have denied the Government’s application because its harm-related showing is patently insufficient. The balance of the equities also weighs heavily in respondents’ favor. While it is apparent that the Government seeks a stay to enable it to inflict maximum predecision damage, court-ordered stays exist to minimize-not maximize-harm to litigating parties,” the dissenting opinion states.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court ruled in a similar fashion when it allowed the Trump administration to revoke special legal protections for nearly 350,000 Venezuelan nationals living in the United States temporarily.

McALLEN, Texas — The Trump administration is seeking to end an immigration policy cornerstone that since the 1990s has offered protections to child migrants in federal custody, a move that will be challenged by advocates, according to a court filing Thursday.

The protections in place, known as the Flores Settlement, largely limit to 72 hours the amount of time that child migrants traveling alone or with family are detained by the U.S. Border Patrol. They also ensure the children are kept in safe and sanitary conditions.

President Trump tried to end the protections during his first term and his allies have long railed against it. The court filing, submitted jointly by the administration and advocates, says the government plans to detail its arguments later Thursday and propose a hearing on July 18 before U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee.

The settlement is named for a Salvadoran girl, Jenny Flores, whose lawsuit alleging widespread mistreatment of children in custody in the 1980s prompted special oversight.

In August 2019, the first Trump administration asked a judge to dissolve the agreement. Its motion eventually was struck down in December 2020 by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Under the Biden administration, oversight protections for child migrants were lifted for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services after new guidelines were put in place last year.

The Department of Homeland Security is still beholden to the agreement, including Customs and Border Protection, which detains and processes children after their arrival in the U.S. with or without their parents. Children then are usually released with their families or sent to a shelter operated by Health and Human Services, though processing times often go up when the number of people entering increases in a short period.

Even with the agreement in place, there have been instances where the federal government failed to provide adequate conditions for children, as in a case in Texas where nearly 300 children had to be moved from a Border Patrol facility following reports they were receiving inadequate food, water and sanitation.

Court-appointed monitors provide oversight of the agreement and report noncompliant facilities to Gee. Customs and Border Protection was set to resume its own oversight, but in January a federal judge ruled it was not ready and extended the use of court-appointed monitors for another 18 months.

Gonzalez writes for the Associated Press.

In May 1939, a ship called the St. Louis departed from Hamburg, Germany, with 937 passengers, most of them Jews fleeing the Holocaust. They had been promised disembarkation rights in Cuba, but when the ship reached Havana, the government refused to let it dock. The passengers made desperate pleas to the U.S., including directly to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, to allow them entry. Roosevelt never responded. The State Department wired back that they should “wait their turn” and enter legally.

As if that were a realistic option available to them.

After lingering off the coast of Florida hoping for a merciful decision from Washington, the St. Louis and its passengers returned to Europe, where the Nazis were on the march. Ultimately, 254 of the ship’s passengers died in the Holocaust.

In response to this shameful failure to provide protection, the nations of the world came together and drafted an international treaty to protect those fleeing persecution. The treaty, the 1951 Refugee Convention, and its 1967 Protocol, has been ratified by more than 75% of nations, including the United States.

Because the tragedy of the St. Louis was fresh in the minds of the treaty drafters, they included an unequivocal prohibition on returning fleeing refugees to countries where their “life or freedom would be threatened.” This is understood to prohibit sending them to a country where they would face these threats, as well as sending them to a country that would then send them on to a third country where they would be at such risk.

All countries that are parties to the Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees are bound by this prohibition on return (commonly referred to by its French translation, “nonrefoulement”). In the U.S., Congress enacted the 1980 Refugee Act, expressly adopting the treaty language. The U.S. is also a party to the Convention Against Torture, which prohibits the return of individuals to places where they would be in danger of “being subjected to torture.”

In both Trump administrations, there have been multiple ways in which the president has attempted to eviscerate and undermine the protections guaranteed by treaty obligation and U.S. law. The most drastic among these measures have been the near-total closure of the border to asylum seekers and the suspension of entry of already approved and vetted refugees.

However, none of these measures has appeared so clearly designed to make a mockery of the post-World War II refugee protection framework as the administration’s proposals and attempts to send migrants from the U.S. to Libya and Rwanda.

Although there are situations in which the U.S. could lawfully send a migrant to a third country, it would still be bound by the obligation not to return the person to a place where their “life or freedom would be threatened.” The choices of Libya and Rwanda — rather than, for example, Canada or France — can only be read as an intentional and open flouting of that prohibition.

Libya is notorious for its abuse of migrants, with widespread infliction of torture, sexual violence, forced labor, starvation and slavery. Leading advocacy groups such as Amnesty International call it a “hellscape.” The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has stated in no uncertain terms that Libya is not to be considered a safe third country for migrants. The U.S. is clearly aware of conditions there; the State Department issued its highest warning level for Libya, advising against travel to Libya because of crime, terrorism, civil unrest, kidnapping and armed conflict.

Although conditions in Rwanda are not as extreme, the supreme courts of both Israel and the United Kingdom have ruled that agreements to send migrants to Rwanda are unlawful. The two countries had attempted to outsource their refugee obligations by calling Rwanda a “safe third country” to which asylum seekers could be sent to apply for protection.

Israel and the U.K.’s highest courts found that Rwanda — contrary to its stated commitment when entering these agreements — had in fact refused to consider the migrants’ asylum claims, and instead, routinely expelled them, resulting in their return to countries of persecution, in direct violation of the prohibition on refoulement. The U.K. court also cited Rwanda’s poor human rights record, including “extrajudicial killings, deaths in custody, enforced disappearances and torture.”

If the Trump administration had even a minimal commitment to abide by its international and domestic legal obligations, plans to send migrants to Libya or Rwanda would be a nonstarter. But the plans are very much alive, and it is not far-fetched to assume that their intent is to further undermine internationally agreed upon norms of refugee protection dating to World War II. Why else choose the two countries that have repeatedly been singled out for violating the rights of refugees?

As in Israel and the U.K., there will be court challenges should the U.S. move forward with its proposed plan of sending migrants to Libya and Rwanda. It is hard to imagine a court that could rule that the U.S. would not be in breach of its legal obligation of nonrefoulement by delivering migrants to these two countries.

Having said that, and despite the clear language of the treaty and statute, it has become increasingly difficult to predict how the courts will rule when the Supreme Court has issued decisions overturning long-accepted precedent, and lower courts have arrived at diametrically opposed positions on some of the most contentious immigration issues.

In times like these, we should not depend solely on the courts. There are many of us here in the U.S. who believe that the world’s refugee framework — developed in response to the profound moral failure of turning back the St. Louis — is worth fighting for. We need to take a vocal stand. The clear message must be that those fleeing persecution should never be returned to persecution.

If we take such a stand, we will be in the good company of those who survived the Holocaust and continue to speak out for the rights of all refugees.

Karen Musalo is a law professor and the founding director of the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at UC Law, San Francisco. She is also lead co-author of “Refugee Law and Policy: A Comparative and International Approach.”