Long Story, but anyways, "lost" two visa cards at the same time in Las Vegas on New Years, one a St George Credit Card, the other a NAB Debit Card. Called Visa arranged cards to be cancelled and "emergency replacements" to be sent to me in New York once i got here.
Received the cards (Thank you to the Andaz 5th Ave), tried to use the St George Card at a Starbucks for a $5, does not work, try the NAB card - works, call Visa, they call St George, turns out St George Cards are only good for walking into a bank and getting a cash advance.
Had a longish discussion with Visa about this, they were pretty sure this is the only bank that do this and thought it weird - followed it up with a call to St George in Sydney, got the run around, spoke to a supervisor, eventually was told that card could also be used for purchases where the merchant was prepared to accept that the swipe didnt work, and they manually processed the card details..
This seems like an overwhelming reason to switch/stay away from St George.
I am lucky, I operate a US account, and a Westpac Savings account, so I was able to swap money around, and have available cash to do that, but if you were on a holiday and didnt have those resources, the St George replacement card service would pretty much ground you, unless your entire holiday was prepaid and you were only looking for cash.
Received the cards (Thank you to the Andaz 5th Ave), tried to use the St George Card at a Starbucks for a $5, does not work, try the NAB card - works, call Visa, they call St George, turns out St George Cards are only good for walking into a bank and getting a cash advance.
Had a longish discussion with Visa about this, they were pretty sure this is the only bank that do this and thought it weird - followed it up with a call to St George in Sydney, got the run around, spoke to a supervisor, eventually was told that card could also be used for purchases where the merchant was prepared to accept that the swipe didnt work, and they manually processed the card details..
This seems like an overwhelming reason to switch/stay away from St George.
I am lucky, I operate a US account, and a Westpac Savings account, so I was able to swap money around, and have available cash to do that, but if you were on a holiday and didnt have those resources, the St George replacement card service would pretty much ground you, unless your entire holiday was prepaid and you were only looking for cash.
