28° [Wizard] Mastercard Cash Advances while overseas

[lopes2017]

For your information, to answer my own question, I did a test myself. Within 3 minutes, I made two cash withdraws for a same amount and from a same ATM in Shanghai last week. The AUD amount that charged by NAB Gold Visa Debit is a little bit higher than that charged by Wizard.

Hi KSER,

can you give me a ball park of how much higher your NAB withdrawal was in comparison to the Wizard withdrawal ie 1%, 3%....

Looking forward to your reply.

[kdser]

Hi KSER,

can you give me a ball park of how much higher your NAB withdrawal was in comparison to the Wizard withdrawal ie 1%, 3%....

Looking forward to your reply.

I drew CNY100, the amount charged by NAB is AUD21.62, while the amount charged by Wizard is AUD21.55. The difference is 0.07/21.55 = 0.3%.

[lopes2017]

Its not much but it goes to show the banks love adding these hidden costs everywhere. Where ever they can make a cent off unsuspecting customers

[BrisMat]

Thanks FL360 for this comprehensive guide.

However, I just wanted to clarify what is a bit ambiguous and may catch people out (I have bolded the relevant section of your post quoted above.)

If your credit limit is $3000, and you add an extra $2000, you do now have $5000 to spend as you point out.

However, the card will not distinguish between cash advances and purchases for the $2000 extra you have paid in.

So for example, if you pay, on day one, a hotel bill for $2500, then take out $50 as a cash advance, that cash advance will start to accrue interest immediately. (The card does not take the $2500 hotel bill out of your original $3000 credit limit, and take the $50 out of the additional $2000 you paid in before you left home!)

Users of the card will need to ensure that at the time of taking out a cash advance, that cash advance is coming entirely out of a credit (positive)balance, which includes considering any purchases that may have been made.

cheers

melT

Hello All,.

I stumbled across the site today and was blown away by the excellent discourse! Thanks very much for all of that.

I'm heading over to Spain in March and am seriosly considering getting a Wizard Mastercard.

I just have one query which I was hoping someone could clarify for me.

It relates to the monthly credit limit. In your example FL360, you mentioned that, in the circumstances where the credit limit is $3,000, but you've loaded up the card with another $10,000, the total available to spend is $13,000 but only $3,000 of that can be used for cash advances. Is my reading correct?

My query relates to whether purchases (as opposed to cash advances) are ALSO counted under the credit limit for the month, or is it just cash advances that are limited?

The way I'm hoping to use the card is to load it up with cash and then use the positive balance for both cash advance and purchases (like hotels). Obviously, I would keep the balance topped up so that it was always +0 to avoid interest BUT i'm just worried that my intentions could be thwarted by the monthly credit limit.

The total monthly spend will be about $AUD12,000 for each of 2 months.

Also, I was wondering what people thought was a good amount to 'load up' the card with initially. I've read on other forums some concerns about loading the card up triggering money laundering concerns by the lender which have resulted in transactions being denied. Obviously, I would also like to avoid this.

All in all, I'm very encouraged by this card and what it offers - i just have to resolve these final concerns and I'll be off to apply for one.

Thanks,
BrisMat.

[_kab_]

BrisMat: unfortunately FL360 seems to have not been on the forum since mid December following his/her very helpful Wizard guide. I hope someone else can answer your question in his place! I myself am now more confused after reading this thread than before I started!

[Baysider]

BrisMat: I'm not aware of any monthly credit limit, just the card limit that is applied when you receive the card. If you put the card $10,000 into credit, you should be able to draw all of that $10,000, subject of course to daily withdrawal limits.

When we travelled, I made internet B-Pay deposits onto the card from our home loan a few days ahead of each cash withdrawal. Before making a cash advance, I checked the Wizard card balance to ensure the credit had appeared.

[FL360]

Thanks MEL_Traveller, _kab_ and Baysider,

Yes, I was away for my overseas trip over the Xmas / new year,
and of course using the wizard card overseas.

MEL_Traveller is correct, any purchases is coming out from the "cash advances interest free allowance" first, therefore you need to count any purchases to the cash advance interest free limit otherwise risking go over the limit and have to pay interest and cash advances fees. The wise way is to have two cards, i.e. my card for cash advances only and my partner's card for purchases only. [noted in the guide now]

Baysider : I have never tried to put in and withdraw out more money than my credit limit to/from the card within a month, because firstly I have not yet need that many money overseas and I think it probably would cost me money to do this experiment. However if there are no monthly cash advances limit, everyone can withdraw (exchange) ~30k AUD every month at a very attractive forex rate, to put this to the extreme you can run a foreign exchange offices in some tourist rip off spot with four cards from a family and make a profit ! Therefore I am not sure but I think the card provider will have a monthly limit on cash advance....

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Here is the revised guide ,
Benefits of this card :
1. No annual fee, no overseas ATM fee, no cash advances fee (home and overseas).
2. Generally it has the best exchange rate available for purchases and cash advances.
3. MasterCard acceptance, it has worked in countries such as NZ, USA, UK, Italy, France, Netherlands , Japan, Korea, HK, Macau, Singapore, Malaysia, China and the list goes on.

However, their customer services is considered bad, so always have a second source of funds ready for backup use when overseas.

Applying and getting ready for cash advance :
Apply through their web-site, after you have got the card and the pin, you need to go to their website and download the form in order to withdraw more than $1000AUD in case (not sure if this is still the case?).

How to use:
To avoid paying any interest for cash advance it is important that you put the card to credit before doing cash advance, and always remember how much you have put in and taken out. For example, the card limit is $3,000, and you put in another $2,000, the total credit available (for purchases) will become $5,000, and the amount of cash available to withdrawn interest free is $2,000. Because I mostly use this card for cash advances overseas I usually do not use it in Australia. (except sometime ago when JetStar take $100 off if paying by MasterCard !)

Timing of Cash advances and Purchases to avoid paying interest:
[Mel_traveller :However, the card will not distinguish between cash advances and purchases for the $2000 extra you have paid in.
So for example, if you pay, on day one, a hotel bill for $2500, then take out $50 as a cash advance, that cash advance will start to accrue interest immediately. (The card does not take the $2500 hotel bill out of your original $3000 credit limit, and take the $50 out of the additional $2000 you paid in before you left home!)
Users of the card will need to ensure that at the time of taking out a cash advance, that cash advance is coming entirely out of a credit (positive)balance, which includes considering any purchases that may have been made.]

One wise way is to use two cards, one for cash advances only and another for purchases only.

How to put the card to credit
The easiest method is to use bpay, the biller code and the account no. will appear in the statement , remember the account number for bpay is NOT the same as the credit card number ! If you need to put the card to credit before the first statement arrives, call customer service and see if they can give you your bpay account number. [serfty : Just one comment with this; if you do not have a statement handy or otherwise do not know your account number and you want to make a payment/reload anyway, the actual card number will suffice. Processing might take a day or so longer. The bpay biller code is: 150615 ]

Limits on daily cash withdrawals :
The daily limit for cash withdrawals is about $1000AUD, or the foreign exchange equivalent.

Limits on cash withdrawals in any billing cycle :
The limit for cash withdrawal during a billing cycle is the credit limit. For example, if your credit limit is $3,000, and you put another $10,000 in, you can make purchases for $13,000, however for cash advances you can only take $3,000 during that billing cycle.

Exchange rate:
Over time, for me it always provides the best exchange rate available, sometimes the spread is as low as 0.3% from the real exchange rate (compared with at least 2.5% for other credit cards) , which can be checked form the www.oanda.com/convert/fxhistory site. However if the currency fluctuates a lot the spread can be widen however in stable times the rate is always the best.

How to use the ATM:
Find an ATM with the MasterCard sign on it, select credit card and choose the amount to withdraw. In most cases ATMs do not incur a use fee, however in some ATMs (for example the ones in Wal-Mart) they do, but they will tell you before you proceed.

Online facilities:
For your deposits / payments to the card it will take about 2 working days to appear on the web. For purchases and cash advances to appear on the web will take longer, usually about 3-4 working days.

Beware of rip off merchants:
If you use this card (or any other card) for purchases in overseas currencies, sometimes the merchant (including on-line merchants such as Tiger Airways when book from SG website for departures not from Australia) will give you an “option” (or “no-commission conversion”) to debit the card in your home currency (AUD), almost certainly at a much worse exchange rate (usually at least 2.5% worse off). Always insist them to debit the card using the local currency of where you make your purchases, for example in US, use USD. The exchange rate provided by Wizard Clear Advantage is almost certainly better than those rates offered by them.

Last edited Jan 2009
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[soccer_fan23]

Just wondering if anyone can clear this up for me. I'm using this card to travel at the moment it says my Current Balance is 745 CR and my Available credit is 2580 does this mean i still can withdrawl 745 dollars or 580 before i go into debit?

Cheers.

[Diesellife]

Another interesting thing that I want to mention:

When I was in the US/HK/UK in a 2 weeks period late last year, here is what I found:

US: Amex & Nab gold banking & Wizard are all competitive with spread less than 0.5%
HK: Generally Amex's exchange rate is terrible, or at least in that period. Amex's exchange rate was 7% higher than NAB / Wizard, NAB has a little advantage over wizard.
UK: Amex is 1% over for pounds, still Nab/Wizard is better, Wizard had the advantage around 0.2%

All in all, Nab seems to have less fluctuation in their exchange rate but Wizard can be helpful and save more if you check the exchange rate for master card daily. For Amex, only use it when you know exactly the FX rate on the day and if its competitive. (Note: the transaction may not be processed on the same day, they use FX4you)

[_kab_]

To avoid paying any interest for cash advance it is important that you put the card to credit before doing cash advance, and always remember how much you have put in and taken out. For example, the card limit is $3,000, and you put in another $2,000, the total credit available (for purchases) will become $5,000, and the amount of cash available to withdrawn interest free is $2,000

This is where I am getting confused! I think it comes down to semantics : cash advance VS cash withdrawal. In your example above you use the term cash advance but my understanding of what a cash advance is differs.

So...what's a cash advance? As I understand it a cash advance is the process of withdrawing cash from your credit card when you have no 'real' cash savings - it's not really your money in the same was that money in a savings account is; it's actually the banks money and they're letting you have it and charging you a kings ransom in interest effective immediately.

The scenario above is a cash withdrawal - not an advance - it's your money to withdraw as you please and you can do so fee free under Wizard's T&Cs.

I do need some clarification on this (as has been noted previously don't get this card if you want fabulous customer service cos you wont get it!). I have only ever used the Wizard as a credit card but this month I am heading o/s and I wanted to use it as a fee free ATM card after I load it up with cash as well as a CC.
My plan is to pay for our hotels and sightseeing activities entirely on credit (already calculated to come in around $4k) to avoid the fees you normally cop with overseas purchases. My pre-loaded cash will be used for whatever it is I cannot pay with credit and I can withdraw this money fee free.

One wise way is to use two cards, one for cash advances only and another for purchases only

This I don't get. How exactly does this work for you? Aren't the cards linked to the same account so what difference does it make? I am having trouble wrapping my head around this (i'm not too bright this morning)! FWIW I have requested an additional card from Wizard and they still haven't sent it...weeks have passed


Sorry for long post. Love your guide though FL