American Express Prepaid Gift Cards for travel

Here's yet another good way to travel, using American Express Prepaid Gift Cards.  Think about it, you can keep your "real" credit cards tucked away for car rental needs, hotel booking needs, etc.  But when you're in a strange city/new place who knows what crooks are out there waiting for you.

So let's say you visit New York City and hit up a nice restaurant.  When it comes time to pay that bill you could whip out your American Express Prepaid Gift Card and use that.  The name on the card reads, "Gift Card" and it will be accepted anywhere they accept an AMEX card.  The benefits?  If you got a crook waiter who wanted to do a card rub he can only do damage to some temporary card.  Sure, banks can help you with fraud on your real cards but that can take time and when you're on the road, it's a pain.

They're also a nice option for people who don’t have bank accounts or credit cards.  At least you can have a card on-the-go.  The cards can be loaded with amounts starting at $25 all the way up to $5,000. They also come with the security of knowing that if the card is lost or stolen the remaining balance is not gone, but instead is placed on a new card and reissued.  Cool!

A new feature from American Express is their photo cards.  You can go online with them, AMEX Gift Cards, and order photo gift cards (where you can upload a photo and have it put on a card, it cost $6 bucks) or personalized gift cards (any name will be embossed onto the card, it costs $2)