Hi all, hoping to get some guidance on travel money management. Will be spending the next year in South America, so want to avoid as many bank fees and charges as humanly possible. Based on my research here and elsewhere it looks like the following is the best solution for me and my wife:
Joint Citbank Plus transaction account for day-to-day spending and cash withdrawals
AND
28Degrees Mastercard OR Bankwest Zero Platinum Mastercard with additional cardholder, for other spending
My thinking is that these options seem to have the best fee structure (no annual fees, no conversion fees, no atm fees for the Citi acct) and offer some redundancy - i.e. debit (Citi) and credit options (28D/BW) would both be available, visa (Debit card; Citi) and mastercard (28D/BW) would both be available.
We'd take the existing Diamond CBA cards (Amex and Visa) as emergency backups, but obviously wouldn't use them day-to-day due to the fees.
Because we will be in South America, travel money cards will be ruled out - I have already looked ito QCash, AusForEx, etc - they really only have mainstream currencies not obscure ones like Pesos etc. But if I've overlooked an option please let me know!
Would anybody care to comment on this plan?
- Does the above make sense, have I got anything wrong or missed any other good options?
- Anybody have any ideas as to the better of the 28 Degrees / Bankwest CCs? I am probably leaning toward the Bankwest card, only because they are affilliated with CBA who I do a lot of other banking, but no other real reason.
Many thanks in advance for assisting with my first query on AFF! Cheers, Mike.
Late to the party, but thought I'd chip in. I recently took out the Bankwest QFF Platinum card to avoid the 2.95% forex fee on an upcoming trip. The conversion rates for recent transactions were close to but of course slightly worse than the xe.com rate of the day - eg:
14/1 1 CAD= 1.0249 AUD (xe.com), 1.032 (Settled Transaction)
12/1 1 USD= 1.2249 USD (xe.com), 1.233 (Settled Transaction)
Suggesting a profit of approximately 0.5% in the mid market rates they're charging. Of course, this being on top of MC hedging the settlement date based on predictions of market trends, etc.
Now, there is a $160 annual fee, but the 8,000 bonus points were worth approximately the same to me based on J redemptions, and the 0% for 12 months BT rate is also appealing if you want to transfer some money off other cards and hold the cash to offset a mortgage or similar. Plus, the points you'll earn on spend made it worth it for me. I pay almost exclusively on card so cash isn't a big deal.
I'm sure you're aware but it's only the platinum that has waived forex fee, so it does have a higher minimum limit and income requirement - but seeing you have a CBA Diamond CC I assume this won't be a problem.
Re: security, I particularly like what Amex do (send you an SMS if they detect a fraudulent transaction, you reply with "yes" and it immediately unlocks your card). When Bankwest suspected my purchase of IHG Dining Rewards to be a fraud, I had to call them to get the card unlocked - and they particularly disliked the fact i had forgotten my phone banking password. This is fine - as long as you have access to a phone. As a side note, i do particularly like how with CBA you can individually lock international/domestic instore/electronic transactions.
Finally, I successfully lost my CBA Amex while overseas, and when I rang to have it disabled I learned it also disabled my wife's as it was the same card number. We had plenty of backups, but something to keep in mind.
