Just wondering what the travelling ozbargainer standard practice is in regard to money right now.
Citybank Plus account for cash withdrawal and purchases and 28 degrees Mastercard as a credit card for emergencies seems to be the best I've come up with, how does that sound?
How does the Citybank Plus work when withdrawing and purchasing overseas, is the conversion rate good?
are there many citibank atm at shanghai and beijing cbd?
Citibank have a great card, but you shouldn't use their ATMs. In my experience (in multiple countries) their ATMs will use a terrible internal exchange rate and withdraw from your bank in AUD. You are better off going to another ATM and withdrawing in local currency, which is converted back to AUD with no fees on this account.
I have typically found HSBC atm's good and generally they have no fees.
oh really? wow thanks then i will just use any ATM in china.
Keep trying different ATMs until you find one which doesn't charge a fee and withdraws in the local currency. You can always back out of the transaction.
FYI the countries we have tried Citibank ATMs are Taiwan, Argentina, HK and somewhere in Europe (I don't remember where). All have shown the withdrawal in AUD with an exchange rate fee of 3-4% included.
I used Citibank and was really happy with it. On my multi-month trip to Europe, there was only one time I had to pay an ATM withdrawal fee, and that was in a small village in the middle of nowhere.
I believe the conversion rates are fairly good too… when I checked, it was better than CommBank.
Spot on.
Citibank doesn't charge you a fee, the arm used might. Exchange rate is far better than exchanging cash.
Only thing extra I have is BankWest Platinum (different statement date) as well, just in case I can't time paying in time to avoid fees with 28 degrees.