Choosing the right Travel Money Cards for your next holiday
A Travel Money Card is a product that allows you to preload the currency of your choice to meet your travel expenses while overseas. You can lock in the exchange rate when you purchase and load the card.
Planning a holiday is very exciting but when it comes to organising your spending money we need to ensure that what we take is secure too. Its best to have some cash for small purchases while on the go but its also best to have a Travel Card with you. I have used a few different Travel cards over the years and most of them have fees so you need to compare them before you leave.
Its most important to look at all the fees and sometimes finding this on the websites can be tricky so I have listed them below for you. I have also added links back to the original websites for additional information that you may need.
Out of the 5 Travel Cards that I have used listed below, Citibank Plus Debit card is my choice for my next trip.
Citibank Plus Debit Card: Some Information below has been provided by Citibank website.
Citibank Plus has features that include: Pay $0 Citibank fees for any overseas ATM or in-store transactions. ( Citibank Australia does not charge Citibank Plus everyday account holders a fee when they withdraw funds from an international ATM or use their Visa Debit card to make in-store purchases overseas. Customers may be charged by the third party provider, which Citibank Australia does not control.)
I have found that the ATM fee if any has been low and the best part is the ATMs that I used overseas display the ATM fee before I completed my transaction.
Citibank Plus card also provides Fee-free international money transfers to any bank, but always check if the receiving bank may charge a fee.
And the best part of the Citibank plus card is that minimum opening balance is $0. There is no inactivity fee charged like other Travel cards. And some Travel cards do charge you if you cancel the card if you no longer require it. Some charge a reload fee but I have found that most are charging $0. This is something to look out for. https://www.citibank.com.au/aus/banking/everyday_banking/citibank_plus.htm
28 Degrees MasterCard:
This 28 Degrees MasterCard is another great Travel card as it allows you to add your money but also having credit available for emergenacy funds was a good idea too. The best features of this card include: No annual fee / No currency conversion fees / No international transaction fees on purchases. But I use this card for purchases only overseas as no international transaction fees helps. 🙂
http://www.28degreescard.com.au
Travelex Multi-currency Cash Passport card
This Travel card from Travelex that I have used is the Travelex Multi-currency Cash Passport card and has the following currencies that you can use.
- Euros
- United States Dollar
- British Pounds
- Canadian Dollar
- New Zealand Dollar
- Australian Dollars (in-store only)*
- Singapore Dollar
- Hong Kong Dollar
- Japanese Yen
- Thai Baht
The fees for this card are listed in the PDF provided by Travelex in the link below. I have found that the PDF from Travelex is easy to read and lists out all the information that you will need. https://www.travelex.com.au/media/1297/multi-currencycpp_pds_au.pdf
Qantas Travel Card:
The Qantas Travel card can be useful if your aim is to earn points while traveling or using the card in Australia with your money that you load up. The features of the card include: The information is from qantascash.com
- Earn one Qantas Point for every
$1 of eligible spend in foreign currency* - Earn one Qantas Point for every
$2 spent in Australian dollars* - No load fees on our prepaid Mastercard^
- No currency conversion fees when you make a purchase or ATM withdrawal with funds in the local currency on your cardx
- No monthly account fees on active accounts^
- No domestic ATM fees charged by Qantas~
- Lock in exchange rates on up to 10 currencies+
- No booking fee on qantas.com when booking within 7 days of travelling^
- Use Qantas Cash at millions of MasterCard® locations worldwide#
- Q-chip enabled for Smarter, Faster Check-in at the airport**
The fees for the Qantas Cash card inlcude:
Purchase, Load, Reload, Transaction, Cash Out, Card to Card Transfer or Monthly Fee |
No fee# |
International ATM withdrawal fee (outside Australia) |
AUD 1.95; USD 1.95; GBP 1.25; EUR 1.50; THB 70;NZD 2.50; SGD 2.50; HKD 15.00; CAD 2.00; JPY 160; AED 6.50.^
|
Currency Conversion Fee | 3% of transaction value~ |
Please refer to http://www.qantascash.com/why-qantas-cash/fees-and-charges/ for additional information on all fees and charges.
Velocity Global Wallet:
The Velocity Global Travel card is also a reloadable Visa Prepaid card which you can load your own money with about 11 foreign currencies, The 11 different currencies that include:
|
|
Fees for Velocity Global Travel card
Request a Global Wallet® Card |
Free |
Request a Supplementary Card |
$10.00 |
Lost or Stolen Card Replacement Fee |
Free |
Load Fee |
Free |
Available Balance Enquiry online |
Free |
Available Balance Enquiry by SMS |
Free |
Electronic Statements – on Website |
Free |
Redemption of Available Balance Fee |
Free |
Inactive Fee (charged monthly after 12 months of inactivity) |
$1.00 |
Emergency Cash Transfer Fee (up to a maximum of $3000) |
$15.00 |
Foreign Exchange Fee (payable whenever a Card is used for a transaction in a currency other than AUD, other than when the transaction is completed by using the part of the Available Balance held in a Wallet in that foreign currency) |
3% of the Australian dollar amount of the transaction |
Transaction Dispute handling fee |
Free |
Negative Balance fee |
Free |
Card to Card transfer fee |
Free |
ATM Fees below
Country |
Currency |
Withdrawal Fee* |
Balance enquiry fee* |
Australia | Australian Dollar (AUD) |
Free |
Free |
Canada | Canadian Dollar (CAD) |
2.00 |
Free |
European Union | Euro (EUR) |
1.50 |
Free |
Great Britain | Pound Sterling (GBP) |
1.25 |
Free |
Hong Kong | Hong Kong Dollar (HKD) |
15.00 |
Free |
Japan | Japanese Yen (JPY) |
160 |
Free |
New Zealand | New Zealand Dollar (NZD) |
2.50 |
Free |
Singapore | Singapore Dollar (SGD) |
2.50 |
Free |
South Africa | South African Rand (ZAR) |
20 |
Free |
Thailand | Thai Baht (THB) |
60 |
Free |
United States | US Dollar (USD) |
1.95 |
Free |
Other than above | Other than above |
2.95 (AUD) |
Free |
https://www.velocityfrequentflyer.com/content/ProgramBenefits/GlobalWallet/
The other important factor in Travel cards is the exchange rate that is charged to you, most of them will allow you to lock in the rate which is great to know. Other Travel Cards exchange rate is at the time of the currency conversion and that will be the retail exchange rate.
I use this Free App which is handy to use while on holidays if you need to check the current rate.
Each of these cards have their own benefits and you should always compare as the fees do change for most Travel cards overtime.
I hope this was helpful and if you use a different Travel card to the one I have listed above I would love to hear from you. Please leave a comment below.
Have a great day and enjoy your holiday 🙂
James
Founder of boardingpassjourneys.com