MB
Marco B., 35
Business development · Events across Europe and the Middle East · Milan
He started using crypto for travel after a card block in Dubai cost him three hours and a missed dinner.
Marco's Italian bank works well for domestic use. For international travel, particularly in countries that his bank's fraud detection considers unusual, it requires active management. Calls before trips, notifications sent, blocks that happen anyway. He had been managing this process for years across different trips and cities. Eventually, he decided to stop managing it and route travel spending somewhere that did not need to be managed.
He loaded a USDT balance and started booking from it.
First trip fully in crypto
An initial conference trip to Amsterdam, in which hotel accommodation was booked through Cryptorefills Stays and a travel eSIM was purchased before departure, demonstrated that the full travel booking process could be completed from a USDT balance without involving his Italian bank at any point.
Flights followed naturally
A return trip from Milan to a conference in Riyadh, booked and paid entirely in USDT, confirmed that the approach scaled across regions that his bank's fraud detection system typically treated as high-risk, without any of the service interruptions he had experienced previously.
eSIMs became the consistent habit
Purchasing a travel eSIM through Cryptorefills before each departure has become a fixed part of his pre-travel routine, ensuring that data connectivity is active upon landing and that roaming charges and dependence on hotel internet access are avoided throughout the trip.
Netflix across the journey
In-flight and layover viewing is covered by a Netflix gift card purchased from the same USDT balance as the flights themselves, bringing entertainment costs into the same payment framework as the rest of his travel expenditure.
The card stays in the wallet for edge cases
His Italian bank card remains in his wallet for transactions that cannot practically be conducted in crypto, which in practice amounts to approximately one transaction per trip, leaving the USDT balance as the primary payment method for all advance bookings.
The structural change he made was not to how he works, but to how the financial layer beneath his work is managed. Travel that previously required advance coordination with his bank, pre-trip notifications, and occasional intervention during card failures now proceeds from a single USDT balance without any of those requirements.
Where Marco's crypto spending goes
Rough breakdown by category: travel-related expenses handled directly with crypto
Flights
40%
Accommodation
30%
eSIM and connectivity
15%
Entertainment
10%
Other
5%
Daily expenses in Milan, including restaurants, local transport, and groceries, remain on his Italian card or in cash. Crypto is his travel infrastructure, and it generally does not need to be anything else.
Crypto vs card: monthly spending split
Almost all crypto spending is travel-related; domestic life stays on card.
Crypto
~35%
Card / cash
~65%
Local Milan expenses and domestic transactions stay on his Italian card for now.
14
border crossings in the past twelve months
0
card blocks on crypto-funded bookings
1
USDT balance covering flights, hotels, and eSIMs across multiple countries
Frequent international travel produces a specific kind of financial friction. A travel wallet in USDT does not eliminate the travel, but it removes most of what used to go wrong with paying for it.
Do the same with your crypto: top up your phone, cover subscriptions, book travel, all from your crypto balance, no conversion needed.
