I recently used Western Union to send $200 overseas to a family member for a wedding present. I used my HSBC Visa platinum credit card on to pay on Western Union website and the family member picked up the cash overseas. As a true OzBargainer, I hate using WU because their exchange rate sucks but had very little choice because I was sending money to someone in a fairly poor country who doesn't have a bank account.
In the three months since, I have learned that using the credit card was a mistake. There is a 3% CC fee on WU transactions and it is also considered a cash advance which means there is not 55 day interest free period. Even though I have been paying my CC bill in full every month, I keep getting charged these small interest fees. I called HSBC to sort this out, but they seem pretty clueless.
It's not a lot of money in fees (total less than $10), but it is still very annoying. Does anyone know a better way to use WU? Should I have used a debit card, or is it better to find an in store location and just pay cash?
Yeah, I think if you use a DC, it would be an immediate withdrawal so no cash advance interest to pay, but there would still be the WU transaction charge. Also was the transaction local or international? There might be overseas transactions charge for the latter.