Hey All,
Planning a trip to Europe and need advice on best account to set up for cash withdrawals across Europe.
Counties needed coverage in -
England
Scotland
France
Spain
Portugal
Already have a 28 degrees card for CC purposes, therefore the need for cash withdrawals with minimal charges / fees etc.
Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks.
Thank you.
As a general rule, European bank ATMs don't charge their own fees (I try to avoid independent ATMs like Travelex etc as a precaution, even though Euronet didn't seem to charge me in Croatia).
I made a post about this before, but generally you'll need an ING debit card and need to meet its conditions the month before if travelling in some Asian or South American countries (the fees in Thailand and Chile are ridiculous), to get a refund on foreign ATM fees. Otherwise, Citibank is fine.
It's good you have a credit card already (I don't). You always need at least 2 cards for emergencies.
Nab Travel Card - gives you a second card as back up. No load fees, no withdraw fees.
no load fees or withdraw fees maybe but they'll hit you on the exchange rate when you load the card, all the travel prepaid cards do. Makes it not viable.
Agreed, however, the lock-in rate can offset this if you got in before the $$ "crashed". Currently, the load rate is 0.602 Euro (for example) and the XE rate is 0.637. Not sure how to find out what it would be with an ING withdraw at an atm (what their bsr is). I always use the travel card option in conjunction with a debit card as I have found that if you lose your travel card they can arrange a western union to you with no fees attached which is a huge help if you lose a card or in a case I faced in South America, all cards. So basically what I'm saying is if you lock your currency in now it can save you in the future as all news surrounding the $$ is that it is sliding in a downward trend.
The lowest the AUD has been against the Euro in the last 5 years is 0.615. So it would have to slide pretty horribly badly to reach the current load rate of the NAB travel card. (0.602) You would be throwing your money away IMO. Travel cards are EASY money for banks, that's my two cents worth. Just an absolute rip.
@nortyjak: Fair call. Last weeks/months I was getting a much better load rate. This is the lowest I have seen. The benefit I find of the travel card as well for me is the money leaves my account so I don't spend it and it is saved until I depart, sorta like a short-term deposit with no benefits and it costs me as you have pointed out. I know it all adds up but 3c over 4k or so is not a big enough dent for me to not use it in conjunction with the ING/debit card. As pointed out, I have lost cards overseas before and it is a nightmare. Next trip I might go pure debit card.
@dazweeja: This is all becoming a bit convoluted now (probably from me). I locked in the majority at about 0.62 (when it was about 0.64 BSR) so my total loss is about 80 Euros or so forth to use the service. I agree if you just go with your bank card then you will probably be ahead but the travel card offers that security blanket of helping you out overseas if you lose your cards……which I have done. First was in 2005 when I lost my nab bank card and they said they couldn't send one overseas. More recently in Brasil for the world cup when my passport holder "slipped" out my bag with all cards in it. When I needed to get money, it was a painless process with no fees attached and this continued for 3 weeks when I went to the US afterwards. So for me, this type of security was worth it as I would have been out of pocket significantly more with Western Union fees etc.
I'm still not sure of the benefits of a travel card over a second debit card that you keep in your luggage? I have an ING card (Visa) for my primary and a Citibank Plus (Mastercard) for my backup. It costs me nothing for either.
@Gringoesai: I've lost my only debit card travelling alone and it was indeed a nightmare (and ANZ was of no help).
However, you might be surprised to hear that both Visa and Mastercard themselves both offer emergency cash services for both credit cards and debit cards. For whatever reason, the banks don't like to advertise that this feature also applies to debit cards - not just credit cards.
I have confirmed this over the phone with ING.
Now, saying this, it is still a nightmare scenario based on my "successful" experience using emergency Visa cash when I lost my UK debit card.
(1) You do all the work yourself dealing with Visa (or Mastercard) in the US. If you're lucky, you might have a bank that does everything for you (I assume most Australian banks wouldn't…).
(2) Visa US is truly incompetent. They're not taught how to interpret foreign addresses (good luck with UK or Australian postcode formats, let alone some obscure ones…). They don't understand that roaming mobiles have high fees to receive calls. They don't know that people from other countries don't use USD. They don't understand that payphones don't exist everywhere these days so reverse charging calls can be impossible to begin with. They don't understand that people that have lost their wallet may have trouble affording phone calls where reverse charging isn't available. They don't know about time differences, holidays unique to countries and weekends. They don't know how many people have gone crazy at Western Union when they weren't given the correct details of the sender (I saw one guy having a meltdown on his third attempt…).
But it's good to know it exists.
ING Orange.
+1 they even rebate any international ATM fees!
Used this card on my last euro trip and had no issues.
Is this a debit card? Thanks
Yes
I will vouch for the Citibank Plus Bank account - served me well on my trip to Paris and London last year and even better in Hong Kong for the number of Citibanks in the area.
Hey - thanks but I have been hearing that Citibank don't have ATMs is Paris or the rest of mainland Europe?
You can use any ATM with Citibank. They themselves don't charge any fees. The only fee that you have to worry about is the ATM operator. In most European countries, the bank-owned ATMs don't charge fees. ING is the best because you even get the ATM operator fee reimbursed but in Europe, that's less of an issue.
Thank you, so, ING Account will be better than Citibank, I am presuming? Or with CITIBANK ex rates, will that be the better option?
Thanks.
Start here - Cards with No Overseas Transaction Fees
or just get a Citibank Plus Bank Account.