Use of Wise cards for online purchases in Thailand: A mixed bag

[FriscoKid]

I have one of my Wise digital cards stored in Apple Wallet on my Apple Watch so that I can use it in stores for contactless payments. I never need the physical card anymore in Thailand. The watch method with Wise works for payment at various stores including 7-Eleven, Villa Market, Big C, Tops, Foodland, Starbucks, Texaco, Turtle mini marts in the BTS, KFC, nearly every department store, and most restaurants that accept credit cards. I honestly can’t think of anywhere I've tried it where it doesn’t work. A year or two ago there were a few occasions when the digital card failed on older contactless card scanners and I had to use the physical card, but that hasn’t happened recently.

 

But the main reason for this post is to mention that the Wise digital card also works on Lazada for online purchases, which makes it very convenient for shopping online in Thailand for just about everything I need, without needing to transfer the money into the country first.

 

Now here is the bad news. It used to work with Tops Online for grocery delivery too, but I believe they’ve started blocking overseas credit cards. When I try to pay there with the Wise digital card it transfers me to the Wise app for approval, which is normal for online use, but then the Tops site says payment failed. Payments used to go through there without any issues, so something in their system must have changed.

 

I’ve also tried using it on Shopee, but I haven’t been able to get it to work there either. It doesn’t seem to allow me to add the card as a payment method in my Shopee account profile.

 

So overall, my experience with Wise cards for online purchases in Thailand has been inconsistent, and definitely less reliable compared to using them in stores.

 

If anyone has had success using either the Wise digital card or the physical Wise card online in Thailand, I’d be very interested to hear your experiences.