Your favourite Travel Card and why?

[5ofus]

In 100 words or less! Haha, I hate those competitions. Anyway, we're getting a Travel Card this week with some US cash on it and don't know where to start. We usually go old school with Travellers Cheques, which we will have some of as well, but this time would like to withdraw some cash as we go along as well. So what's your favourite? Why? How much are the ATM withdrawal fees? Load fees?

 

[gogo65]

I previously have never had a travel card, preferring just to withdraw from ATM's direct from my bank account, however on our recent rip to central America, we decided to buy the Australia post load and go, as a back up plan. It worked without issues in Guetamala, Belize and Mexico.
You can load five different currencies. I loaded mine in Aussie dollars then was able to move some into USD.
Free to purchase, free to reload!
Minimum $100 initial load.
$2 ATM fee.
There is a 3% currency conversion fee for using currency other than pound,€euro, $USD, $AUD or $NZD.

Good value travel card in comparison to travelex, ANZ etc

 

[5ofus]

Thanks Gogo! I think we're going to go with the NAB one. They have a promotion right now where the initial load fee is waved until the end of this month. We bank with NAB so it might make any transfers we do on the go a bit quicker, but who knows.

Travellers' Cheques are far less complicated! LOL

 

[gogo65]

The only thing with the nab/ANZ etc cards is there is an inactivity fee of $4month, so when you get home, you pretty much have to cancel it. Otherwise if you use it here you pay an ATM fee, These cards are pretty use once and throw away,

 

[WAMUMOF4]

The only thing with the nab/ANZ etc cards is there is an inactivity fee of $4month, so when you get home, you pretty much have to cancel it. Otherwise if you use it here you pay an ATM fee, These cards are pretty use once and throw away,

That's why we liked the AMEX one from Aust Post no fees for inactivity they send you a new card when it expires if you still have funds on it and no charge to reload at Aust Post and no fees to initially get the card either

 

[gogo65]

Yep agree WAMUM, that's why we got the aust post one as well, I like the no reload fee and no ongoing costs, but we travel overseas a lot, so we got the card that fitted our travel needs.
If we were just going to a resort in Hawaii or fiji etc then we wouldn't worry, just charge everything to the room and pay on CC at the end, however once you start travelling around through different countries with different currencies, little hotels, local restaurants, little towns then access to money is a different story and you need to keep your options open.

 

[Sugarglider]

I'd say easily that a travel card made my travel and cash exchange way easier and cheaper than other previous options. I've always had a good word for travelex in the past - I do think they are as good as anyone. But I admit I am looking at the new NAB card - simply because i bank with them and it is multi currency - which is now the way to go.

I have a british travelex card which has just gone inactive after 12 months non-use and is now charging me about $2/month inactive fee. Only has $20 left on it so I'll close that down.

 

[zanzibar138]

We just use our normal bank and credit cards. We're happy to pay currency conversion fees for the convenience and it really doesn't work out to be that much. Having said that, we do take a fair bit of cash with us that usually covers the small day to day items so we're not whipping out the credit card all the time.

I wonder what the travel cards attached to the Qantas and Virgin frequent flyer cards will be like Has anyone signed up yet?

 

[gogo65]

Zanzibar,
I have signed up for the new qantas card, purely cause I have lost my FF card, and the new travel card is combined into your normal FF card. We did the online survey that qantas sent out, seems like it will be VERY expensive, so won't be using it.

Agree with you about using everyday credit/ATM card, that's what we do, and never had a problem. Costs are fairly similar, and as you say don't just whip it out all the time. In saying that when we went to central America and I took the aus post card it was convenient and was accepted in the little banks in the middle of nowhere so definetely a good option as a back up, we only had $500 on it purely as a backup in case we had issues with our other cards(which we didn't)

 

[Caroline NZ]

We prefer a Travel Card over a normal ATM debit card because the Travel Card locks in the rate at the time you load it with the foreign currency. So it takes exchange rate fluctuations out of the equation. So if the exchange rate goes down against the USD it doesn't affect us because the Travel Card has the funds converted at the higher rate. And if the actual exchange rate happened to go higher than the rate the Travel Card funds were purchased at (wishful thinking) then I would be happy to use our Visa credit card to take advantage of that ( and save any surplus Travel Card funds for a future trip)

 

[5ofus]

Well we got the NAB one the other day and locked in a rate 2 cents higher than it is now Pretty pleased with ourselves.

 

[Aussiesonholidays]

I'm currently using a Australia post card and having so much trouble with it locking me out I have had to call back in Australia 3 times to fix problem Not happy with my choice

 

[gogo65]

I'm currently using a Australia post card and having so much trouble with it locking me out I have had to call back in Australia 3 times to fix problem Not happy with my choice

Wow that's interesting aussieonholidays, is that the new load and go visa travel card or the multi currency cash passport?? They are both sold at aus post as well as The Amex global Travelcard.
We had the load and go, loaded it in Aussie dollars, pulled Guatemalan and belizen dollars out of it with no problems whatsoever, and we were in very remote places when using it

 

[shushh]

We use a combination of cash, travel card and credit cards. we use the CBA travel card (we bank with them and somehow hubby has managed to negotiated some sort of few waiver each time). We tend to load the bulk of our money at the beginning to minimize fees. Easy to use as a credit card. And we withdraw at a bank in chunks if we can to avoid ATM fee. Or at ATM withdraw as much as we can for cash.

We also take our 28 degrees MasterCard. It has no international conversion fee and exchange rate you get with it is actually pretty good.

Then as a back up we have our usual bank credit card.

The conversion fees whilst doesn't seem like much with each transaction it does add up.

 

[Sugarglider]

The conversion fees whilst doesn't seem like much with each transaction it does add up.

THIS!

arrghh - plus the NAB charges a $4 foreign ATM per use charge when using an ordinary debit card.

 

[SIMTRAC]

We use the CBA travel card and have us and Canadian dollars on it. Brilliant! We used it for ATM (withdraw a few hundred at at time so you don't get hit with the fees each time) and as a credit card while shopping with no issues at all. We have left the money in the card and are using it again at Christmas for the next trip. Highly recommend it!!

 

[viaggiamo]

We have a citibank debit card which is for foreign travel and has no foreign transaction fees or withdrawal fees from any ATM. (you may pay the charge from the local bank though which is never very much.)

The money is your own and it takes around 3 days to clear transferred funds.

We think, even though we are taking a risk on the currency fluctuation, the transaction fees (3-4%+) on the amount we spend are worth the savings as opposed to any other card.

We also take cash. It depends where we go, but in the USA we take between $1000-$2000 with us.

 

[aussietravellers]

I'm currently in the US and I'm using the NAB traveller card. It was easy to get, just went into the branch. I took advantage of the special on this month for no initial fees to get the card. So no charge for the card and no % to upload money, fee free. I got the current travelex rate too, so it was a good exchange rate. I also like that the NAB card does not charge to withdraw money from ATM's in the country of the currency loaded unlike any other card. You can load up to 10 currencies (although I only added one).

I have had no trouble using the card so far, although I have only used it as a credit card up until now (which also doesn't have any fees either).

There is an inactivity fee after 12 months of no activity, so I will either load some more money before that time's up to keep it active or close the card down once I get home so am not worried about the fees.