455494 Virtual Card Review - United Kingdom Visa Credit
Our log shows clean passes on TikTok Ads, Google Ads, Meta Ads, first charge and renewal both going through.
455494 appears on Visa cards issued by Airwallex to United Kingdom customers. That is the whole identification. Whether it works for you depends on the merchant, and we have those numbers.
The spec sheet
- BIN
- 455494
- Card network
- Visa
- Issuing country
- United Kingdom
- Card type
- Credit
- Issued by
- Airwallex
- Card form
- Virtual only
- KYC tier
- Business KYC
- 3-D Secure
- Yes
- AVS check
- No
- Billing address
- Not published
- Funding methods
- Bank transfer
- Max cards per account
- Multiple (employee cards with controls)
- Issuer risk rating
- Medium
The fee stack
Pricing, laid out: no issuance fee to open a card, no top-up fee every time you fund it, and no FX markup on conversion. Nobody advertises the decline fee, so we list it. That is the number that surprises people.
| Card creation fee | Free (instant issuance, free to create from held balances) |
|---|---|
| Monthly fee | Free |
| Top-up fee | — |
| FX / conversion fee | — |
| Declined transaction fee | — |
| Minimum top-up | — |
The test results
Merchant by merchant, in the order we charged them. The rates below count renewals as well as first charges.
Merchant by merchant
| Merchant | Attempts | Cleared | Rate | What happened |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TikTok Ads | 37 | 35 | 95% | went through on a fresh card with the issuer's default address |
| Google Ads | 30 | 27 | 90% | cleared first time; a second charge a week later also went through |
| Meta Ads | 23 | 19 | 83% | cleared, 3-D Secure completed in-app in under 20 seconds |
| Sephora US | 15 | 0 | 0% | Range blocked at the acquirer. Declined before the authorisation was even routed. |
| GOAT | 12 | 4 | 33% | 3-D Secure challenge never completed. The order timed out waiting for the OTP. |
Run from a United Kingdom-region account between 10 Aug to 07 Sep 2026, with the billing address set to the issuer default unless noted. Declines were logged with the reason the gateway returned.
Failures we could not fix
Sephora US is the one to avoid. Its fraud rules appear to treat Credit ranges as high risk by default.
What to change before you retry
- Sephora US: 0 of 15 cleared. US and EU stores bill through different acquirers. Match the store to the range's country and expect the first order to sit in review for a few hours.
- GOAT: 4 of 12 cleared. Same mechanic as StockX: funds are captured on seller acceptance. Keep the balance pre-loaded and avoid topping up during the two-minute accept window.
Setup notes for Airwallex
- You can hold several cards at once (Multiple (employee cards with controls)). Split them by merchant, not by amount. It makes a failed charge far easier to trace.
- Set the billing address to exactly what Airwallex generates for United Kingdom. Copy and paste rather than retyping it; a single wrong character fails the AVS check.
- 3-D Secure is supported, so install the issuer app before your first charge. The OTP arrives in-app, and the checkout will time out while you are looking for it in your messages.
Where we land
We would rank it above average and below the top tier. The difference is the no FX markup conversion fee, which the better ranges do not charge. Take the Credit label seriously though. Some merchant rules treat it differently to credit.
FAQ
What does the 455494 BIN tell a merchant?
Roughly: who issued it, where, and what kind of product it is. Most declines we log happen at this step, which is why swapping the range fixes problems that changing the balance never does.
Is 455494 a real card number?
No, and this trips people up. 455494 is a range identifier shared across every card Airwallex issues in United Kingdom. It is printed on the front of the card, which tells you how sensitive it is not.
Why would 455494 be declined if the range is fine?
Changing one variable at a time is the only way to diagnose this. Address first, then card, then the connection country. We have seen people change all three and learn nothing.
Can thousands of people share the same BIN?
Yes, and it is worth internalising. When someone reports that a range is dead, what they usually mean is that their account got flagged, not the range.
How we got these numbers
We bought a Airwallex card, funded it, and pushed 117 charges through live merchant checkout pages between 10 Aug to 07 Sep 2026. Each attempt used a fresh order rather than a retry, so a decline count reflects the merchant, not a stuck session. 85 cleared.
Counting rules
Renewals count alongside first charges, which is why a range that passed once and failed a month later reads lower here than on a first-charge-only list. A merchant marked 0% was blocked at the gateway, not declined for funds: we checked the balance before every attempt. Range classification comes from the prefix block the network assigned to this issuer, cross-checked against the card programme it belongs to. Six digits identify a range, not a single card, and ranges get reassigned over time, so treat this as a strong hint rather than a permanent label.
Log through 13 Sep 2026 14:40 UTC · rate last re-checked 12 September 2026 · 117 charges on record for this range.