Meet the Team
Sarah Chen — Lead Editor
Sarah has over 10 years of travel finance journalism, covering cross-border payments, foreign exchange markets and consumer banking for readers in North America, Europe and Asia. Before joining VoyageMoneyPrep, she was a senior writer at a leading personal finance publication where she specialized in how payment networks behave outside their home markets. She has reported from Shanghai, Tokyo, Dubai and Budapest — and once spent three days troubleshooting a single tourist Alipay account for a family of five.
Sarah holds a bachelor's degree in financial journalism from the University of Missouri and is a Certified Financial Writer (CFW). She reviews every major guide before publication and leads the quarterly policy refresh cycle.
Marcus Wright — Senior Contributor, China Travel Money Research
Marcus is a China travel money researcher who has been based in Beijing since 2018. He has tested more than 40 international and Chinese payment products firsthand — from UnionPay debit cards to virtual-prepaid wallets — and maintains a personal database of merchant acceptance rates across eight Chinese cities. His writing focuses on the practical edge cases most guides miss: what happens when a foreign card is declined at a rural gas station, or how to get a refund when WeChat Pay's tourist version fails.
Marcus studied Mandarin at Beijing Language and Culture University and previously worked as a payments analyst for a boutique fintech consultancy. He contributes product spot-checks, fee audits and on-the-ground updates to VoyageMoneyPrep.
Aiko Tanaka — Contributing Researcher, Southeast Asia & Cross-Regional
Aiko covers the regional angles of travel money preparation: how rules differ when you fly from Japan to China versus from Australia, which transfer services work across multiple Southeast Asian countries, and how mobile payment interoperability changes between jurisdictions. She has a master's degree in international commerce from Hitotsubashi University and has worked as a policy researcher for a regional payments association.
Aiko fact-checks cross-border fee calculations, regional ATM network compatibility and regulatory updates that affect multi-stop itineraries.
Our Editorial Review Process
No guide is published without passing through the following steps, and every page is revisited on a scheduled refresh cycle:
- Research & drafting. A contributor gathers information from official sources — bank fee schedules, customs notices, app documentation, card network policies and merchant terms — and drafts the guide with inline source notes.
- Lead editor review. Sarah Chen reviews the full text for accuracy, clarity, scope and tone, and cross-checks at least 60% of the factual claims against independent sources.
- Field spot-check. A team member (often Marcus Wright when China is the destination) tests one or more of the recommended steps in person — opening a test account, attempting a real ATM withdrawal, or verifying a mobile payment setup from a foreign device.
- Disclosure & date stamping. Every published page carries a visible "last updated" date. If a rule has changed since the last full refresh, the page is flagged and corrected within seven days.
- Reader correction loop. We actively solicit corrections through our contact page. Any reader-reported issue is reviewed within 48 hours and, if confirmed, corrected and acknowledged on the page.
Fact-Checking Policy
VoyageMoneyPrep follows these principles for every number, fee, rule and step we publish:
- Prefer primary sources. Bank disclosures, official customs publications, card network operating rules and provider help centers rank above secondary blogs or forums.
- Note uncertainty. Where a policy is unwritten, inconsistently applied or subject to sudden change, we say so explicitly instead of presenting a guess as fact.
- Test what we can. When a claim can be verified by opening an account or attempting a transaction, we do — and we record the outcome.
- Date aggressively. Payment rules change frequently. If a page has not been reviewed in the past 12 months, it is marked for a full refresh regardless of whether errors have been reported.
- Keep ads separate from facts. Advertising and affiliate relationships never influence what we recommend. All affiliate links are clearly marked where they appear.
Corrections Policy
If you believe something on VoyageMoneyPrep is wrong, outdated or misleading, please tell us. Send a note through our contact page with the specific page, the information you believe is incorrect, and (if possible) a link to a reliable source. We will acknowledge your message, investigate the claim, and publish a correction if it is confirmed — usually within a week.