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in another $2,000, the total credit available (for purchases) will become $5,000, and the amount of cash available to withdrawn interest free is $2,000.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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