Travel money cards

Hi,

I've just been reading about your travel advice and travel cards. I'm going to four countries in europe in a few weeks time and they all use euros (italy, spain, croatia and montenegro). Therefore I will only need one currency on my travel card. I'm deciding between the ANZ travel card, CBA travel card and Teachers Mutual Bank Multi-currency travel card.

Any suggestions or tips on which one to get?

Thanks

If I were you, I'd go for the NAB traveller card, fee is only 1% of the transaction amount, with no fee for opening the card, and no fee for withdrawing euros at an atm in a country that uses them, just make sure that the ATM accepts Mastercard.

Card is a prepaid Mastercard, and isn't linked to any accounts (good in case fraud occurs), and depositing funds on the card either involves going to a NAB branch and placing funds on, or via Bpay (this takes 2 - 3 days for funds to show on card), and fee is still 1%.

Hope this helps!

Oh, and you don't need to open a NAB account to get a NAB Traveller Card, just have a DL and Medicare card for ID purposes.

I'm a huge fan of 28 Degrees:

http://www.28degreescard.com.au/

No international transaction fees and been great for all my travels all over.

NAB Traveller card is supposed to be good. Please note that Croatia does not use Euro, it has the 'kuna', although Euros are often accepted at tourist destinations. 

This may not be new for some but just a word of caution with the use of travel cards.

When checking-in to hotels (especially in the USA) and you are asked to provide a credit card for the account DO NOT USE YOUR TRAVEL CARD OR DEBIT CARD.

As an example of what can happen, if you have a balance of $2,000 on your cash card (or debit account) and the predicted cost of accommodation is $1,000, the hotel will pre-authorise against the card the $1,000 plus possibly a couple of hundred extra dollars. Then when you actually check out and you go to pay the $1,000 accommodation bill, there's every likelihood the card will be rejected because of insufficient balance. It can take up to 7 days to have the pre-authorised amount released back to to your card.

This recently happened to my daughter who wasn't aware of the trap.

Te solution is to provide a credit card when you check-in and then when checking out offer up the cash card (debit card) as payment..

If you use the Commonwealth card - after you've used the "free" first fill up, make sure to just get a new card if you're ever putting more that AUD$1,500 onto the card in the future.  Commonwealth take 1.5% off the recharge balance, so it's cheaper to get a new card if you're putting on a few $000s at any time.

If you know anyone who is a full time student, the Commonwealth Bank travel money card is free and there is no charge for the initial load.

Personally however, I have stopped using travel money cards and just use a regular credit card these days.  Unlike travel money cards, if you are subject to fraud with a credit card, provided you weren't stupid about how you use your card I believe the bank is liable, not you.

If you plan on visiting Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Latvia or any other country with a currency that is not supported by travel money cards, it is far more economical to use a normal card - especially if you are someone who pays off the card every month and earns decent reward points on the money you spend. 

I would use a 28 Degrees credit card and load some AUD on prior. No fees when taking out cash at ATM,s and no currency fees when using as a credit card.  Much better than a travel card.

28 Degrees Mastercard, are to introduce a cash advance fee from 1/1/2014, see copy of text of email recd yesterday:

Dear Colin,

This email is to inform you of changes to your 28 Degrees MasterCard.

• A cash advance fee of 3% of the cash advance or $4 (whichever is greater) will be charged to the account on each occasion on which you obtain a cash advance or make a cash equivalent transaction (except that if the cash advance is made by a direct transfer to a bank account nominated by you, this fee will not exceed $30 for that transaction).
  
  

• Clause 45 of the Conditions of Use and Credit Guide is amended by:
  
  

  Adding the following to the definition of cash advance balance:

  "cash advance related fees and charges debited to the account."

  Amending the definition of general fees as follows:

  "general fees means all fees and charges (included in the financial table or clause 10), which are debited to your account, but excludingcash advance related fees and non-interest bearing fees."

These changes will take effect on January 1, 2014. It's important to be aware of them, even though you may not be impacted.

WE have always been happy with 28 degrees but now they have caught up with those of us who pre loaded  cash to withdraw and this 3% fee is  going to be a pain! I have looked at Citibank plus and Bankwest zero platinum cards  but any ideas as to how to avoid the 3% charged by all other cards would be appreciated.

BankWest have a gold credit card that has no fx transaction fees, but ATM fees still apply. I have used the Citibank Visa Debit card without any problems, I think these days its almost a given that some fee have to be paid. The 28 Degrees card is still without fx fees for purchases, so its become my "emergency card"

Thanks for that, we will apply for a citibank debit card and use  the 28 degrees for purchaese etc