Need a credit card for a student going on exchange.Preferably no fee on the cc. She is earning quite a bit in the uni holidays so will be approved for on.
What is the best credit card so that she doesnt need to buy more travel insurance.
American Express Blue Sky:
HSBC Gold Card:
Westpac Gold:
These are the ones that have been suggested on Oz bargain. But I want to find out if there are there is catch to any of these which I might not be aware of.
The AMEX does NOT have to be paid off in full each month.
How long is she going for?
Most free travel insurance only lasts for 3 months and in some cases cannot be extended.
Some travel insurance companies do let you start insurance once you are already overseas so you can topup.
Hi Raz,
My brother and myself both went on exchange over the past few years. We have been using st george atm card (runs off "cirrus") and withdrawing large amounts of money ($500-600 at a time to avoid excess fees) and keeping it well hidden. Worked fine in argentina + the US.
I would check what you require before you chose. I am with CBA (pay no fee but normally you do) and they use Allianz I believe. I rang them up and they stated they needed a copy of your statement with your ticket purchase before you made a claim, but would not take a copy before hand as they did not have "storage" facilities. So if you are in hospital overseas try and remember where your copy is and get someone in the hospital to find it and then send a copy???? I just gave a copy to a relative before I went overseas with the contact info.
This won't give you travel insurance, but I got a Wizard Clear Advantage Card for credit card purchases overseas. There are no international transaction fees with this card, you can also pre-load it and use it to make cash advances (need to be careful to monitor your limits).
stanas is right about wizard card. in fact good idea to have this card AND a travel insurance providing credit card (although often these have annual fees that need to be calculated - the Wizard card doesnt have annual fees).
The CC travel insurance is based on buying the ticket on the card not continued use overseas. And its always good for a backup. nothing worse than being OS and the card fails or is damaged, lost, or gremlins mean it doesn't work somewhere.
Aldog posted about the same time. This card has no transaction fees sometimes up to $5 each time with others so as Davo mentioned to save on those fees they took out $500 at a time. You wont have to take that risk with the Wizard card because of the no transaction fees. And in the time away they can spend more on transaction fees than the travel insurance
Personally, I'd go with the Wizard Clear Advantage Mastercard (as mentioned) and get travel insurance separately for peace of mind.
Thanks all for all the great information. Good to see your experiences too as there seems so many things to consider esp as travel is for 1 year.
If she is earning 'well' as you say, I would get proper separate travel insurance, in case there is some fine print you missed. My friends daughter had a simple break of an ankle in USA and cost about $100K !
that is amazing… how can a broken ankle possibly cost 100k?
she was sold a prosthetic ankle made of bling =)
Hiya,
I can't comment on any of those, except to say that AMEX is probably the least accepted card because the high merchant fees, and it must be paid off in full each month.
I recently acquired a Bank West Zero Platinum Master card which has all the features of a Platinum card without an annual fee, this includes extended warranties and insurance on products, travel insurance, etc.
There is also a gold version of the card that offers similar features, although the limits a slightly less.
You can check them out on this page
I should also add that in my experience Bank West have the best customer service of any organisation I've dealt with so far.