Best Credit Cards for Overseas Travel & Online Shopping

[SYD]

IMHO the Wise Visa debit card is by far the best way to travel. You can charge the card up in multiple currencies with an attractive exchange rate, and pay the tiny exchange fee only once, or transact OS using your AUD balance and pay the proportionate transaction fee/exchange rate in real time. Also terrific for sending money OS, buying OS products eg amazon.com (us). You also get dedicated OS bank accounts for others to make foreign currency payments into your Wise account. Been using it for maybe 15 years now, by far the least expensive and most innovative and flexible debit card on the market. Kinda similar to Venmo (US) but better because its international. See wise.com. BTW I have no vested interest, just used several debit/credit travel cards before landing on Wise.

I’m a Wise (and Revolt etc) sceptic.

I’ve had an account for a couple of years and I finally used it in anger a few weeks ago to transfer money to pay for some things on my current trip in India. Yes, it was probably quicker and marginally cheaper than a bank transfer but beyond that, I still don’t see the benefit over a regular international fee free DC or CC.

My main beefs:
1. You need to pay for a physical card (all the banks issue a card free)
2. You need the physical card to access cash
3. Ridiculously low free withdrawal limits at ATMs…
4. My main issue is you have to give Wise YOUR money to hold (same problem with all preloaded cards) - the very marginal lower fee compared to a VISA/MC (we’re talking a decimal point), is eaten by lost interest on your money (instead Wise is making money)

You might get lucky with locking in a good exchange rate, but you could easily lock in at a bad rate. I’m happy to take the forex risk myself.

Also, what happens if you don’t use up the foreign amount? Convert back to AUD or another currency and wear a 2nd fee?

I’ve not used it, but the disposable virtual cards I guess are handy if you want to protect your account details online.

 

[VPS]

I’ve not used it, but the disposable virtual cards I guess are handy if you want to protect your account details online.

The disposable virtual cards are great especially for those pesky places that make it nigh impossible to cancel a subscription