Forex-TC or Credit card

[Raz]

Hi,

I am going to Japan and was wondering if anyone had bought Travellers cheques or had found a Credit Card with no fees. I have used my Anz Platinum Visa when overseas but they do charge.

With TC you dont get FF points which is the downside.

What is the best way?

Raz

 

[straitman]

With TC you dont get FF points which is the downside.

What is the best way?

Raz

Unfortunately TC's often give you a bad exchange rate which then balances out the CC fees.

ie It's lose or lose :!:

 

[drron]

In Asia you often get a better rate for TC's than cash.
Japan though is very formal so cashing TC,s or cash can be a pain.Best to get yen or yen TCs here if you want to go that way.In Japan I always take cash.Order on line,pay with CC and get my rewards points anyway.

 

[fortymilliondaggers]

Travellers cheques are easy to cash in Japan in all reasonably sized cities. Should take about 20 minutes. Exchange rates are competitive too.

For a future trip, I will take my spending of my money in TCs and keep cards as backup.

 

[hogie]

I use the Wizard Clear Mastercard. There are no fees, and there appear to be no transaction fees or foreign exchange surcharges i.e. it almost appears miraculous. The trick, of course, is never to let them charge interest, so make sure that the money you want has been credited to the card first. Just been to Tokyo, so I know it works, but I couldn't tell you what the exchange rate was - it seemed ok.

hogie

 

[Flashback]

I second what hogie said, I did exactly the same on my recent trip to Japan and it worked a treat

 

[drron]

Travellers cheques are easy to cash in Japan in all reasonably sized cities. Should take about 20 minutes. Exchange rates are competitive too.

For a future trip, I will take my spending of my money in TCs and keep cards as backup.

Precisely.In KL and Bangkok they take 2-3 minutes to cash with no fees.

 

[spunkarooney]

NAB Gold Banking with NAB Gold Visa Debit card has no foreign ATM fees (within Australia, or abroad) and they do not charge you the foreign currency conversion fee.

Last year I compared this with a Citibank Visa Debit card and found that even for transactions as small as AUD20 there were differences of up to 80¢ in the AUD amount – with NAB always being cheaper.

I would not bother with travellers cheques – the card also worked fine in Japan – there was an ATM in the airport (as you would expect these days).

 

[Alanslegal]

Put your Wizard Clear MC into serious credit before you leave and that will do the trick - no conversion fees, forex rates very close to the actual days rate and you can use it for cash advances. Too easy.

As good practice, always carry a 2nd form of currency or card just in case.

 

[spunkarooney]

Just remember that the NAB option I have suggested does not require a credit application – for some people a new credit card may not be the best option in the current environment – with the other downside being that your application will be listed on your Veda Advantage file. Plus, there’s no guarantee that your credit application will be accepted.

 

[Flashback]

So it's a better entry than the Wizard MC then?

 

[SeaWolf]

The NAB option does require $5000 of deposits a month to avoid the $12 a month fee. If your salary isn't quite at that level yet though I don't see why you couldn't simply withdraw $2000 and deposit it back again three times.

 

[serfty]

NAB Gold Banking with NAB Gold Visa Debit card has no foreign ATM fees (within Australia, or abroad) and they do not charge you the foreign currency conversion fee.

Last year I compared this with a Citibank Visa Debit card and found that even for transactions as small as AUD20 there were differences of up to 80¢ in the AUD amount – with NAB always being cheaper.

I would not bother with travellers cheques – the card also worked fine in Japan – there was an ATM in the airport (as you would expect these days).

Can you give a more precise example including forex amount, AUD charged and transaction date.

e.g. Last Saturday (Nov 1), I withdrew USD80 from an ATM in LAX with my WizMC and was charged AUD121.12.

The XE.com XE - Credit Card Charges Calculator indicates this as a 15¢ or 0.12% variance to the "Mid-market rate for USD to AUD on 2008.11.01 of 1.51215".

 

[spunkarooney]

These transactions were made one after the other at the same ATM:

11/06/2008 20.00 SGD
Citibank 15.90 AUD
NAB 15.43 AUD
Better off with NAB by 47¢

13/06/2008 200.00 MYR
Citibank 67.47 AUD
NAB 65.28 AUD
Better off with NAB by $2.19

25/06/2008 500 MKD
Citibank 13.69
NAB $13.34
Better off with NAB by 35¢

You see, I made these relatively small transactions for the specific purpose of comparison.

As there are no fixed fee amounts involved, only exchange rate and exchange rate conversion (percentage fee) fees involved, the fees would multiply with the more you withdraw – adding up substantially for trips of length or for large amounts withdrawn.

My advice would be to use NAB primarily and have another card as backup.

The difference was so great that I did all of my purchases overseas using the NAB Visa Gold Debit – it was worth it to forgo the Altitude Rewards points to pay less in the end. You can test this yourself by making purchases from Australia from sites abroad. I could almost guarantee that it’s going to be cheaper with NAB Visa Gold Debit.

By the way, the exchange rates used for cash withdrawals were the same as those used for purchases.

 

[SeaWolf]

spunkarooney, that's really useful info. I'd be curious to see a similar set of results for the Wizard card as well. The NAB card is certainly looking like a good product, especially with the extra insurance that comes with the card too.

 

[fortymilliondaggers]

Precisely.In KL and Bangkok they take 2-3 minutes to cash with no fees.

No fees in Japan, but the difference is that the Japanese are very...thorough.

 

[serfty]

Using XE.com to check each the commission for each example:

• SDG20: 0.06 AUD ( 0.403%)
• MYR200: 0.27 AUD ( 0.420%)
• MKD500: 0.05 AUD ( 0.414%)

Going by this the NAB card charges an approximate 0.41%.

 

[spunkarooney]

NAB states that it does not charge its own conversion fee. My guess that amount you see is the fee levied by Visa International. Whatever the case, the NAB card is my friend when overseas – I’m yet to see anything better.

 

[Flashback]

No fees in Japan, but the difference is that the Japanese are very...thorough.

Not in my experience... not once did I have them actually check the signature.

 

[Baysider]

I'm going to put another vote in for the Wizard Clear Advantage MC. Used ours in the USA and Canada last Christmas and the conversion rates were well ahead of Amex and Westpac Visa.

Recent comparison in Hong Kong (last week):
Amex: 1 AUD = 4.90 HKD
Wizard: 1 AUD = 5.13 HKD

We use ours solely for cash, and other CC's for credit.

Online statements lag a few days in updating. As advised by others, put it in serious credit before you leave and just do cash advances at ATM's - any ATM with the MC logo. Some charge an extra fee - check the MC website for the partner banks that do not.