Revolut: why is Maestro my only option?

Hi the Community,

Long time reader of the forum and I thank you all for the vast knowledge shared.

I’ve a question: I openend my Revolut account a few days ago, ordered a free physical card and didn’t think much about it till I saw that a Maestro was on the way. I choose Revolut because they advertised Visa as the physical card. I m ok with Mastercard too, but not with a Maestro.

I’ve never had the choice to request either a Visa, Mastercard or Maestro. It send automatically the Maestro. I then contacted the customer support via chat. They were unclear with their answers. They said the type of card was randomely chosen and that if the app didn’t let me choose I had no choice but to get a Maestro.

I m hesitating to order a new card that I d have to pay, but I m worry I won t have the choice for the card and will end up with 2 Maestros that are totally useless for me…

Any ideas on how to deal with it? If I cannot get the Master or Visa I ll close my account and be very disapointed.

Thank you for helping me.

That’s the second time, I’ve read about that experience…

Fwiw, it might still be ok, from what I’ve heard this type of maestro card usually works wherever MasterCard is accepted.

Maestro is definitely no good if you want to use Revolut online or at many places outside of Europe. It has some advantages, as some small stores (in CH, D, NL) will charge you extra if you pay with Visa/Mastercard or only accept Maestro.

I don’t know if you really had no option to choose between Maestro or Mastercard (this is what they are offering in Switzerland right no - no Visa for new customers. But the Mastercard is better anyway as it will work with GooglePay/ApplePay.) Or if there was some bad UI design where you could have swiped to change card type but you didn’t notice it.

Anyway if you order a card you can clearly see the logo and what kind of card it is. So it’s not possible that you order another Maestro and don’t notice it. So you can try to order another card. (Mastercard). I would also post this experience over at https://community.revolut.com.

Thank you for all these explanation.

I’ve finally decided to order a second card and this time I could choose between Maestro and Master! Finally… so I dont know if it was a bug or what? But I doubt I ve missed it the first time but not the second.

I don’t think I could choose the first card (2 months ago), it was a visa though.

On the other hand, I could (ca. 3 months ago; and chose Visa).
Weird, what could it depend on?
My basic guess is country of registration, but for most of us here that was CH, right?

In the order process within the app, there was an option to order a Maestro or a Mastercard. The UI is a bit confusing there. You could also choose the color of the card the same way.

Hi all, since my current Revolut MasterCard will soon expire, Revolut has allowed me to replace my card. I am able to choose a type: VISA or Maestro. No MasterCard available anymore.

Here’s what Wikipedia says about Maestro.

Maestro is a brand of online-only debit cards and prepaid cards owned by Mastercard that was introduced in 1991.

I also found a thread on Revolut’s forum (they’re also using Discourse, cool):

Judging on this thread:

  • I guess the card I have now is MasterCard Debit Prepaid
  • The Maestro would be accepted in more Swiss shops due to lower fees
  • But the Maestro will not work for online purchases (my MasterCard usually does)
  • Since I mostly use Revolut abroad and online, I think I will go with VISA

Any comments?

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I d definitely go for the visa. Outside Switzerland I found it hard to use the maestro.

Go for VISA. I have had the VISA since the beginning and I never had any issue for using it abroad.

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FYI, from what I’ve seen from discussions elsewhere, it’s a maestro that should work wherever mastercard works (including online). If merchants reject it, could just ask to try and it should work.

(disclaimer: that’s my understanding from what I’ve read, I have the visa card tho)

I would go with VISA 1000%, especially if you travel outside Europe, where Maestro is basically unknown…
Normally, Maestro was also useless for online payments as it did not have the 4x4 digits like Visa/Mastercard.
But googling around Revolut Maestro, I see some pictures with the 4x4 digits -> maybe this issue is solved…

I would go for Visa too if you plan to use your Revolut card outside the EU, but it is true that Maestro cards are the only options at some merchants in Germany or the Netherlands in my experience, so that might be something to factor in.

I had the same exact situation happening a couple of days ago.

In my case I couldn’t choose the card type, but the illustration of the card I would receive was a VISA, so I was quite happy and proceeded to order the card. When it arrived, it was a Maestro. I would like to use Revolut services for travels so, like it was pointed out in the thread, it was not the brand I was looking for.

I tried to discuss with their robot but it kept repeating that it was randomly assigned and that VISA and Mastercard were widely accepted. It didn’t even mention Maestro, even after I tried to push it. I gave a 1 start rating to the robot discussion experience and was put in contact with a real customer service employee.

I explained my situation and they told me that they could send me a VISA for a fee of 6,99.- the price you would pay if you decided to order a 2nd physical card on your own. I explained that on my app the logo on the card illustration was clearly VISA and that sending me something else was deception and that I don’t see why I should pay for that. They apologized and sent me a VISA free of charge.

It all looked fishy but Revolut customer service was very kind and handled the situation promptly and efficiently.

Nope, the support clearly told me that it was for illustrative purpose only and that the logo and the card displayed was not guaranteed to be the same as the one you receive.

Same for me.

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Can any of you try to use the Maestro card anyway? I believe it’s just a brand of Mastercard credit card and a POS will accept it without issues. You might have problems with a person that might check it first, but otherwise I believe it should work anyway.

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Hmmm that’s wierd. I have the Revolut Metal Plan and for physical cards I can still today either get a plastic Visa or Maestro card OR a metal Mastercard.
I ended up using the Maestro card with Google Pay basically everywhere in Switzerland because it’s cheaper for the stores/restaurants. Out of Switzerland I use a virtual Visa or Mastercard to get the nice 1% cashback.