I am travelling to various European countries that have different currencies, I will load a travel card with Australian dollars. Can I use this currency & it will be converted in each country or should I load the various currencies. I feel more comfortable with just AU dollars instead of some British pounds, some Euros, some Turkish Lira & Hungarian HUF. I need advice please.
Thank you.
that isn't just an ATM thing, many hotels, cruise ships and shops offer the same for credit card transactions, unless you have one of the worst possible credit cards out there then it is nearly always a bad move to accept it. Was really starting to piss me off when in the US when every hotel/cruise and shop wanted to offer that service to "save me money".
I miss the glory days of being able to load a 28 degrees card with a positive balance and make fee free withdrawals at great exchange rates.
Happy days, simpler times.
Not really.
These days, there are enough debit cards that don't charge you a fee for ATM withdrawals overseas and the exchange rate is still the mid market rate. In both cases, the ATM operator may still slug you a fee.
The only difference now is that your 28 degrees or other no international fee credit card of choice can be used to make purchases without dipping into your cash withdrawal funds… which honestly is an improvement on the old days.
OP, you mention that you feel more comfortable with dealing in AUD and having that converted to the local currency by the card you use.
If so, the benefit of travel cards like Wise or Revolut pretty much disappears. The main advantage of these cards is that you can convert your AUD to the foreign currency in advance and if you speculated well, it would have been converted at a good rate.
Now, if you don't care about spending your time guessing on exchange rates and are happy with the rate at time of the transaction, just get yourself a few debit cards and/or credit cards with no international transaction fees or overseas ATM withdrawal fees.
Be sure to have one Mastercard and one VISA option as some vendors will only accept one or the other. It's rare, but does occur.
My suggestions:
for a Mastercard debit card, go with Macquarie. Their app is designed to benefit travelers especially with an authenticator negating the need for SMS OTPs. I would use Macquarie as your main debit card.
for a VISA debit card, the options aren't on par with Macquarie IMHO as they each have their pros and cons. Of the options that you can apply for, I would pick ME Bank's SpendME account. Why? On Android, you can use facial recognition to get into the app which is great if fingerprint recognition is playing up. The main drawback for ME Bank is that if you were to transfer funds to another bank (even if it's another bank account you own and set up as a payee already) you will initially need to receive an SMS OTP. If you don't receive said SMS OTP, you have the option of verifying by answering 2 of 5 questions to which the answers were provided by you upon setting up your account. Alternatively, Suncorp's debit card isn't bad and Suncorp has an authenticator app for transactions that require it. The last time I sent funds from Suncorp to another of my external bank accounts, it did not require the authenticator's code. The drawback for Suncorp is that the authenticator can only be installed on one device meaning you better not lose the phone the authenticator is installed on.
for a credit card, I would go with Bendigo Ready. It's the last of the no annual fee credit cards to include complimentary travel insurance. It also has a BSB/Account number meaning if you need to quickly pay it off because you've almost maxed it out, you can OSKO to it.
How I would use the cards:
1. Use the Bendigo Ready credit card for card payments
2. When withdrawing cash, use either Mastercard or VISA if there is an ATM operator that is fee free for one of these networks.
3. When opening up your debit card accounts, for each bank, open two transaction accounts (the ones with debit cards) and one savings account (which won't have a debit card). One of these debit cards will be your main one for that bank. The second one is a back up that you keep tucked away in a hard to find location in your luggage and either keep no money on it or an amount you're happy to lose if it's stolen. You can lock the card if you want (though the drawback is that if you lose your phone, you can't unlock it). The savings account is for where you put most of your funds. Transfer funds from the savings account to the debit card/s as you need it for each day.
4. You'll want to use Macquarie as you main bank when traveling… the app really is much better to use. But in the event Macquarie mobile banking is down (which I've yet to see occur), do keep some money with the bank you chose for your VISA option.
I would consider a second, cheapie esim enabled phone with your banking apps installed on them. In case your main phone is stolen, at least you have a back up. Use a VPN and ensure the usual biometrics, etc is enabled for accessing the phone and apps (including email).
Just my experience with providing banking and tech support for over 2yrs to my retiree parents who spend every second month abroad.
This is a great summary but I would disagree with one point. Wise is still a good option even if you keep your funds in AUD due to the conversion rates. Most other cards do a 3% spread on conversions from the mid rate, but Wise is closer to 0.5% for most currencies.
I would put another vote for Wise, I've found it to be easy to use and good rates.
I don't disagree that Wise ranks higher than most debit cards on exchange rates. But there's been quite a number of real world tests done and Wise just doesn't rank at the top when compared to quite a few no international fee debit cards.
Here's one test I could find at short notice (a few others I remember are on WP)
https://youtu.be/5KjgrNJTe1s?t=580
Typically, your Macquarie, Up, Bankwest, ubank and (citibank plus replacement) NAB Classic are at the top of the list.
I think someone on WP had said ME Bank are on par with ubank on conversion rates but I can't re-verify. And unfortunately, Suncorp doesn't seem to be a popular debit card for use overseas besides it ticking all the right boxes so I can't confirm how well it ranks on conversion rates.
On top of this, Wise also has the following drawbacks…
So if one was to use the Wise card as they would a debit card, I just can't see any benefit when compared to to the best no international fee debit cards out there.
Apart from multi currency storage and being able to convert in advance, where I would put the likes of Wise or Revolut at an advantage is virtual cards. Being able to delete and replace them has its advantages when it comes to security. But one would have to stick to contactless payments. Personally, I don't like having so many things rely on my phone… it's a drain on the battery already to use maps, messaging and the camera so I prefer to keep my payment mechanism as cash and card as much as possible.
Mind you, the virtual debit card advantage of Wise and Revolut isn't unique to them. Bankwest (who rank on par with Macquarie, Up, etc for exchange rates) also offers them:
Thanks for the extra info, definitely some good points for me to look at next time I head overseas. I guess for me paying most things via card, having a burner digital card and pre-converting my money to local currency were good features, so I didn't see the negatives as something which would impact me.
Will definitely have a look at some of the others (e.g. up) when I can eventually afford to travel again, to see if any of the others will suit me better.
@819mac: From what I know, Wise sounds like the right product for you if you use virtual cards and like to pre-convert your money.
The multi currency products from banks aren't great and I would take Wise or Revolut over them if I was going down that route.
If you want to combine with a no international fee debit card to get the best of both worlds, getting one of the Mastercard options to complement the VISA card Wise gives you is definitely the way to go. Up, Macquarie and Bankwest all have no annual fees… I would just open an account with each, have a play with the apps, do some transfer tests to Wise to check for transaction delays and take the one/s you like on the next trip.
Of note is that I can confirm that Macquarie show both the foreign currency and AUD amounts for each transaction. And a few others below have verified this for Up as well. Macquarie has an authenticator app but Up relies on SMS OTPs I believe. The transactions in Up are shown like a messaging app which some people prefer.
@Mugsy: 'Macquarie show both the foreign currency and AUD amounts for each transaction'
yep I seem to recall liking that in Japan last time - both currency amounts popping up on the screen immediately after I used MB transaction debit card on my iPhone Apple Wallet to tap'n'pay - that felt nice.
I use my Up Card, works pretty well and the interface will actively update to show me the currency conversion of what I've been spending in
Currently in Europe myself and am using Macquarie debit card as my everyday spend with my ole faithful 28 degrees credit card as a backup. Nfi why people are recommending Wise considering it’s not even fee free.
Parents have been using Macquarie in Asia for the past 2yrs now. Only issues are when a hotel doesn't accept Mastercard and one or two instances where an ATM did not like the card. Dad his his ex-citi NAB Classic for those situations.
IMHO best options with no hoops that people can still apply for…
Mastercard - Macquarie, Bankwest, Up
VISA - ME Bank, uBank, Suncorp
Worth keeping HSBC everyday global card too but it should only be used when:
- withdrawing cash from HSBC ATMs (note some countries' HSBC ATMs won't be fee free… couldn't find list on their website)
- not for the following currencies which is converted at HSBC's non-competitive rates United States Dollars (USD), British Pound Sterling (GBP), Euro (EUR), Hong Kong Dollars (HKD), Canadian Dollars (CAD), Japanese Yen (JPY), New Zealand Dollars (NZD), Singapore Dollars (SGD) and Chinese Renminbi* (CNY)
I recently used a Revolut card when travelling to Japan. It was pretty good! Small tip - make sure you load some money a few times before you go. Looks like Westpac didn't deposit the money straight away (they held the money for a few days). Subsequent loading was fast.
Had a Westpac travel card as a backup as well as my regular cards.
A lot of friends use Wise and they seem happy with that.
Up is good and has a great app too. Shows how much of the local currency you took out and how much it was in AUD. If you use it in a store it also tells you the city/ward you were in when the transaction was made, making it easier to track where and when you spent money.
Another vote for Up bank. Absolute transparency and decent rates. So convenient to use your normal card when you travel too. Just pay with it or withdraw cash from ATMs, don't bother with travel cards as you'll lose money. Exception is probably WISE.
Yeah, with the right debit card it makes a lot of sense for most people to stick to using their card for payments overseas.
Dad use to spend so much time looking at converting cash to a foreign currency in advance. But then he did a few tests with getting cash out overseas using his Macquarie debit card and compared the conversion rate to that given by foreign currency conversion places and the Mastercard mid market rate he got was always better.
These days, he's got it linked in Alipay and Wechat for payments in China. He just checks every morning that he's got enough funds in there for the day and he's good to go.
ING/Ubank/Macquarie to withdraw cash.
CBA Ultimate Awards / Bankwest Qantas Platinum for other purchases with cards. Only applied when there were other sign-up bonuses to go with (and passed the waiting periods). They are usually not the best bonuses in the market or earn rate, but easy to meet min spend while travelling.
All 5 do not charge foreign transaction fee, but rates may vary.
A PHONE WITH 5 VIRTUAL CARDS
A watch with NFC and 3 others
then redundancy is complete.
I used Wise mainly in Europe last year. I used Revolut only at my stopover in Qatar, because it's the only card where you can load up and actually use Qatari Riyal.
and actually use Qatari Riyal
Not sure what you mean. Up card will let you withdraw local currency in any ATM that accepts Mastercard cards, and will work as a debit card in Qatar. According to the Up App, the current conversion rate is 100 AUD = 235.91 QAR.
For those wondering about what fees they may be slugged when using an Australian debit card overseas, here's a good summary:
https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/thread/974pw5wp?p=52#r1022
The post is focused on the ex-Citi NAB Classic debit card but the content is applicable to most of the other no international transaction fee debit cards mentioned here. HSBC is probably the exception and ING only applies if the hoops have been met of course (and with limits).
Avoid the Qantas money card. Just went away for 5 weeks, and it was down multiple times where I couldn't top it up or see my balance.
Others I was traveling with hated their ING cards as they constantly needed to get a security code for transactions and unless you are going to pay for roaming charges on your mobile number, they were left up sh!t creek.
While it's possible to still receive SMS OTPs without international roaming packs, with the number of factors that could be at play: countries in the world, the different networks in each country, potential APN changes for the networks in those countries and the agreement in place between those network providers and your Aussie provider, I wouldn't want to rely on SMS OTPs when abroad.
It's certainly not just an ING issue. There are quite a lot of banks that rely on SMS OTPs to verify transactions. ME Bank does it too with every bloody transaction (even to your own account with another bank that you saved as a payee already!) but at least they have an alternative option to answer a few verification questions to allow the transaction to continue.
I know there are a lot of good debit card options for international travel but there's one reason I put Macquarie ahead of the pack… their app and authentication system. The app is super functional right down to showing both the foreign and AUD amounts per transaction like Up does, but it's the authenticator that wins me over. You can avoid relying on SMS OTPs and it's the ONLY bank authenticator that can be set up on multiple mobile devices. This means that if your main phone with the authenticator is lost/stolen, you can have a back up phone set up in advance with full banking functionality if you use Macquarie. No other bank allows for this setup.
Incidentally, I highly recommend a cheapie Motorola phone with esim as a back up phone when on holidays for the budget conscious. The camera's not great compared to my S23U but it does the job.
UP
Card purchases: Macquarie Platinum/Black credit card - 0% international fees, free travel insruance & reward points though you can only apply with a home loan
Cash withdrawals: Macquarie debit card
Good core setup!
I use to want a Macquarie Black credit card but with my current financial setup, it's lucky I didn't open a loan with Macquarie.
I do my day to day banking with Macquarie. Once we fully offset our mortgage, it became beneficial for my loan to be somewhere else for the FCS guarantee. Just as well, we ended up with our offset facility annual fee waived for life and I can grow any savings held at Macquarie without concerns.
I use the Bendigo Ready credit card for the no international fees and free travel insurance and churn a second credit card for reward points.
Get a credit card with no international transaction fees for card payments (Bankwest Zero Platinum is a popular no-fee choice, though it's not as good as it used to be). You're better off with a credit card because if the card gets compromised, they're taking the banks money and not yours. This happened to me on my last trip. I had around $5k charged to my card a few weeks after my trip, and the bank credited it all back to me whilst I was never out of pocket.
For cash withdrawals, open a free transaction account with a bank that doesn't charge for international ATM withdrawals (I think Ubank is a pretty straight forward one). Transfer money into this account as needed, then use your card to withdraw cash from relatively trustworthy locations (e.g. bank branches). If your card does get compromised, then you're only risking whatever money you've transferred into the account.
I tried to apply for Bendigo Ready Credit Card online but it rejected my application after I entered my financial details. I had no issue applying to other credit card before. Have anyone had similar issue?
This is nothing to do with the currency conversion , you never accept the ATM conversion but rather let your bank / card do it. This is about the ATM fee for using a foreign card.