Which Money Travel Card?

[minime3]

I want to get a travel card to start loading money on for our USA trip next year. How do they work? Can they be used to pay for accommodation like a Credit Card? Or am I better off just taking my Visa debit card and using that? Also what one would you reccomend? I want to be able to draw out money for a few days each time from a ATM rather then having all our spending money on us.

Thanks

 

[Jaxxie]

Hi

We spent soooo long researching the cards and ended up with a Jetstar card in my name and hubby ended up with a NAB one but in the end they were all pretty similar.

Both of ours are great as we can have cash sitting on the card and then just change it into US dollars when the exchange rate is good.

I *think* the Jetstar one will be able to be used to pay for the room as it has my name printed on it but have heard of some people having trouble with them not being accepted but then they could just withdraw the cash to pay for the room.

We will also have our normal card on us just in cases ( we don't have enough spending money!)

 

[Sugarglider]

Yep they are all fairly similar. So many of them now, I suspect the competition is keeping the fees and rates in check. So you will find the differences in fees and the exchange rates to be less than 1% between them so it really doesn't matter much. Perhaps your bank has one and that you can link to your bank accounts / internet banking?
They VISA or Mastercards and they operate just like a VISA/Mcard debit card would work. You can load them up with cash when the exchange rate is good. And when using them in ATMs you won't pay the foreign ATM fee. (just the usual $2.50 to use the ATM like we have here)
If you use your existing debit card you will be charged whatever the exchange is at the time of the purchase (really - when the bank puts the paperwork through) AND unless you are on a special package with your bank perhaps also charged a foreign exchange fee and a foreign ATM fee (my bank charges $4 for this So check your product with your bank before leaving town!
And yes - look into the travel card - low fees and the exchange rate is the same as the bank would offer you anyway.

 

[Lewdannie]

The best cards to travel overseas with are:

For purchases (including online): The 28 Degrees Mastercard
http://www.28degreescard.com.au/


and for cash withdrawals
The Citibank Plus card (it's is essentially a debit card)
http://www.citibank.com.au/plus/index.htm?code=LCQ9Y7YG6AAYSAZH


They both have no fees for currency conversion and offer rates the same or very close to the market exchange rate

There are extensive threads on Whirlpool discussing the benefits of these cards. I used them both when I was in the US earlier this year.

They offer significantly better rates than any of the other credit cards, travel cards or currency conversion available elsewhere.

Cheers

Dean

 

[ExcitedSam]

I ended up going with the CBA one as that is our bank. I have heard pele having issues using it for accommodation, but could then get cash and pay for it that way!? (this one was in Vegas) the jetstar one sounds good with the name on it though! But also with accommodation they won't take it as a bond as they can't get money if there is no cash on it! So they don't like it.

I have had some money loaded when the $$ was good and have used it to pay for stuff I've booked in the US too like Disney tickets, then I don't have the exchange fee.

 

[alicia1506]

we used the 28 degrees credit card from GE - no foreign currency fees, no exchange rate fees and no foreign atm/eftpos withdrawal fee, unless otherwise charged by the foreign atm owner. funds are exchanged at whatever the rate is on the day the transaction is processed.

we also used the commbank travel money card. you can preload it with funds (first load is free, then 1% of the aud value loaded is taken as a fee for subsequent loads) and lock in the usd value at the time you load. we got a really good rate that way, but beware the banks don't offer the regular cash conversion rate you see on tv. when they load the funds, it's usually a few cents on the dollar cheaper. eg. aud = 1.02 usd, commbank travel money card will load at aud = 98.5c... we used ours to pay for all our accom, flights, tours etc etc and had no issues except one hotel in vegas tried to take a bond without telling us and then tried to charge the room rate on top, and it declined due to insufficient funds. it took the better part of 1.5 wks and a complaint direct to their marketing/reservations manager to resolve that one...

my sis used her commbank travel money card to draw money out. $2.50 for each cash withdrawal, so she'd take out like $400 at a time to last her every few days.

i'd say go with whatever one suits your needs.