28° Mastercard Cash Advances while overseas [No more free cash advances from 1/1/14]

[ashleyf]

I'd call the a Wizard CSA to them them you are going overseas, where you are going and that you intend to use the card, but nothing else.

Simply put it into credit and use it. You should be fine.

(As always, take a backup card with you.)

Had been planning to put it into credit , but by more than my limit. I was told that this was not recommended, indeed it could result in the card being blocked.
Next person I tried at CS told me that it WOULD be blocked if I went over it substantially.
She said money laundering issues, issues with cards being lost and inability to refund etc as a reason .

Anyway, it put a dent in my original plans. ONLY way around it seems to be if you continue to monitor online, payoff what you owe online and then reuse.
Negative is the loss of 'free' interest for the billing period. Positives are still the nil bank charges for ATM withdrawal and no added percentage charge for o/s transactions.

 

[Fantic125]

I recently received my Wizard Card with a $8k limit.
Activated the card and told them I will be travelling over the next few months, said nothing about putting it into credit.
I'll update the Forum with how it goes.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Had been planning to put it into credit , but by more than my limit. I was told that this was not recommended, indeed it could result in the card being blocked.
Next person I tried at CS told me that it WOULD be blocked if I went over it substantially.
She said money laundering issues, issues with cards being lost and inability to refund etc as a reason .

Anyway, it put a dent in my original plans. ONLY way around it seems to be if you continue to monitor online, payoff what you owe online and then reuse.
Negative is the loss of 'free' interest for the billing period. Positives are still the nil bank charges for ATM withdrawal and no added percentage charge for o/s transactions.

What I do is:

* pay in a starting amount
* make an estimate of my likely withdrawl rate, and from this I set up in advance automatic transfers from my bank account going in every several days or once a week depending on the trip. Factor into this a lag of several days just in case payments are late.


This supplies a regular to up without having to have too much at the start and minimises how much I have in Wizard at any one time....which has the plus that more cash in is my mortage offset account saving me interest.

If you find you are spending you can make at extra transfer when convenient.....or even cancel one of pre-planned transfers if you are spending less.

Having it all pre-planned also means that you do not have to find internet, or rsik accessing bank accounts on a computer which may not be secure.

 

[Cirdan]

Had been planning to put it into credit , but by more than my limit. I was told that this was not recommended, indeed it could result in the card being blocked.
Next person I tried at CS told me that it WOULD be blocked if I went over it substantially.
She said money laundering issues, issues with cards being lost and inability to refund etc as a reason .

Anyway, it put a dent in my original plans. ONLY way around it seems to be if you continue to monitor online, payoff what you owe online and then reuse.
Negative is the loss of 'free' interest for the billing period. Positives are still the nil bank charges for ATM withdrawal and no added percentage charge for o/s transactions.

This also puts a significant dent in my plans to load this card up with 8k just before we go O/S. I obtained this card specifically for use in credit O/S as it had such a good reputation for use in credit. Now, at the last minute, I have to find another means of withdrawing money, O/S.

 

[Flashback]

This also puts a significant dent in my plans to load this card up with 8k just before we go O/S. I obtained this card specifically for use in credit O/S as it had such a good reputation for use in credit. Now, at the last minute, I have to find another means of withdrawing money, O/S.

I normally load up say $500 on the Wizard when I go overseas, and also take similar in cash with me. That way if the Wizard doesn't work at the first ATM you try, I'm not stuck with nothing. From there you can then initiate the backup plan on getting funds. This is why it's always important to have multiple sources of money.

That being said, I don't think you'll have any issues.

 

[serfty]

I have had my Wizard card in credit for over $4K for several weeks without any issues.

While the card provider has the right to close the account etc. if in a credit balance, they generally don't.

The CSAs are reading from scripts - they have to tell you the "party line".

In practice, the reality is that someone/something needs to bring to the card providers notice that an account is significantly in credit to initiate such action.

There are several ways the card provider may become aware this. The easiest way is to tell them! :shock: It is also likely they use software to scan accounts regularly, but it seems they generally only act in exceptional circumstances triggered by various indicators (e.g. Amount of Credit balance multiplied by the period in credit could be one).

As I posted earlier, simply deposit the money and use.

I would go further and indicate it would probably be fine to put it into credit by not more than a small amount (up to $5K) and no more than a week or two before departure.

If you plan on using it for more, set up transfers as indicated by lovetravellingoz before you depart. That's a really good idea IMHO.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

The other option of course is to just allow cash advances onto a debit balance and pay those straight away through on-line banking.

For cash advances (overseas) of around $2000-$4000 a month I generally pay around $1-$2 in interest charges, sometimes less (last month was 87c).

I go on-line and pay the estimated amount of the cash advance by pbay the day after I withdraw it.

This way I keep the money in my bank earning 6% interest which is much higher than any cash advance charges I end up paying.

 

[Jeffrey O'Neill]

i tend to just put $500 when leaving australia and then do a top up every so often.

am not too worried if i have gone into a negative balance for a day or 2 as the interest is really just a few cents, and well for the money the card saves me i'm still happy.

not sure why people want to put thousands of $ on the card before they leave - much better to have the money earing or saving you interest and set up some scheduled bpays over the length of ya holiday.

the card is relatively reliable, but i've had a few glitches while in vietnam and some atms in bali, but overall the card has saved me a lot fo money on withdrawls and getting a decent forex rate to boot.

 

[Cynicor]

Wouldn't worry about having it in credit. Mines had ~$4000 credit all year due to my brother going overseas (he has a supp so he has access to cash. Automatic bpay every week keeps it high and his spending has been pretty low apparently.

One thing I hadn't run into before- ~$1000/day cash limit. I really need about 4k by sunday as i want to change some cash in singapore ( in the Fairmont right now, love this place ). Anyone got any suggestions?

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Wouldn't worry about having it in credit. Mines had ~$4000 credit all year due to my brother going overseas

That's a pretty high $240 expense for keeping a credit card!!

 

[ashleyf]

Thks for the suggestion. I think lovetravellingoz idea of setting up regular deposits may work for us.
Now all I have to do is inform the wife that we have a budget to stick by otherwise the card won't work.....

As Serfty said, always have a backup so we will probably use an ANZ travelcard as well.

 

[Flashback]

I notice BPAY payments on the card seem to be very efficient now, well for me anyway. I made a payment Thursday afternoon and it was in by last night.

Wouldn't worry about having it in credit. Mines had ~$4000 credit all year due to my brother going overseas (he has a supp so he has access to cash. Automatic bpay every week keeps it high and his spending has been pretty low apparently.

One thing I hadn't run into before- ~$1000/day cash limit. I really need about 4k by sunday as i want to change some cash in singapore ( in the Fairmont right now, love this place ). Anyone got any suggestions?

I'll second that, I had a great stay at the Fairmont 1.5 years ago also!

 

[bushtuckerman]

No wonder the interest rate on the card increased 3.75% recently to 19.24% pa. So suckers like me can subsidise those taking advantage of the system where Wizard makes nothing from them. Personally I would like to see all Wizard credit cards cancelled and money refunded if they are in credit.[/QUOTE]

I certainly understand your point. 19.75% is a bit onerous. However, you will find that Mastercard's 3.75% increase was due to the international cost of money (an overhang of the GFC) rather than some people putting their cards into credit by a few hundred dollars for a few weeks.

If you are still concerned about people 'free-riding' or in some way influencing your credit card rate, there are a number of money management solutions available. These include paying off your cc within the due period rather than paying interest at 19.75%. Alternatively, you could balance transfer to a credit card that charges a near-zero rate for say 6mths, and then transfer to a low rate card with interest rates around 12%. This is still significantly less than your initial 16% rate.

And finally, I was travelling home via Bangkok on the weekend with a mate who carried cash, rather than a card plus daily cash. On Saturday night he was drugged and robbed of his money belt containing almost $5000. He also lost his watch, wallet and mobile phone.

Certainly a good reason to keep my Wizard Mastercard.

Cheers
Bush

 

[MEL_Traveller]

ok - a warning here (not necessarily wizard specific)...

just got my statement in and see a dynamic currency conversion took place in china recently - cost me AUD17 in additional charges.

I pulled out the receipt which clearly shows the RMB amount.

Underneath that is a conversion to AUD, however this has been moved right to the left of the docket - so that it still looks like the RMB is the amount you are signing for.

There is then a message saying 'I have chosen not to use Mastercard currency conversion process' or words similar.

Of course at the time I thought I was signing to say I was NOT using the dynamic conversion process. But I can see now how that is ambiguous, and i guess it is referring to not using the usual Mastercard process where they convert it and not the merchant.

So - just a word of warning that some of the receipts are now being designed to make it look like you are signing for the foreign currency when in fact you are not.

Just a side note - it looks like the tax refund in the UK (VAT) was also 'dynamically' converted for me. I was given no option at the time to select how the transaction should proceed. Again - another 10% loss to me (and gain for the merchant - in this case Travelex who handles it on behalf of UK customs).

 

[Flashback]

ok - a warning here (not necessarily wizard specific)...

just got my statement in and see a dynamic currency conversion took place in china recently - cost me AUD17 in additional charges.

I pulled out the receipt which clearly shows the RMB amount.

Underneath that is a conversion to AUD, however this has been moved right to the left of the docket - so that it still looks like the RMB is the amount you are signing for.

There is then a message saying 'I have chosen not to use Mastercard currency conversion process' or words similar.

Of course at the time I thought I was signing to say I was NOT using the dynamic conversion process. But I can see now how that is ambiguous, and i guess it is referring to not using the usual Mastercard process where they convert it and not the merchant.

So - just a word of warning that some of the receipts are now being designed to make it look like you are signing for the foreign currency when in fact you are not.

Just a side note - it looks like the tax refund in the UK (VAT) was also 'dynamically' converted for me. I was given no option at the time to select how the transaction should proceed. Again - another 10% loss to me (and gain for the merchant - in this case Travelex who handles it on behalf of UK customs).

That was how it looked on a receipt when I paid for accommodation in AMS last year, so nothing new...

 

[sinophile888]

I purchased a BA flight from GEN to LGW yesterday for use in January 2011 using my Wizard Clear Advantage MasterCard. This evening I was rung up by the fraud department of GE Money to make sure that I had made the purchase. Good to see that they are keeping an eye on my overseas spending.

 

[bits]

Hi

Just want to clarify the following. I have a $4000 Wizard credit card limit. Then before going on holiday I transferred $2000 onto it so had $6000 credit available.

While overseas I too some cash out from an ATM (A$575.44) so now my current balance is -$1424.56 (-$2000 + $575.44).

'Available credit' however, is $5188.00. I expected my available credit to be $5424.56 but I expect the $236.56 difference (5424.56 - 5188) to relate to the hotels pre-authorising my card (or whatever they call it) and that this should be corrected automatically soon when they get around to releasing it?

So now I am back in oz and want to get all my cash back out of the Wizard card without incurring interest charges etc. Based on the above info, I'll be fine if I go to the ATM and do a cash withdrawal of $1400? ie so long as my current balance does not become positive? Or do I need to allow for the amount that the hotels are 'holding'?

Thanks

 

[Flashback]

Hi

Just want to clarify the following. I have a $4000 Wizard credit card limit. Then before going on holiday I transferred $2000 onto it so had $6000 credit available.

While overseas I too some cash out from an ATM (A$575.44) so now my current balance is -$1424.56 (-$2000 + $575.44).

'Available credit' however, is $5188.00. I expected my available credit to be $5424.56 but I expect the $236.56 difference (5424.56 - 5188) to relate to the hotels pre-authorising my card (or whatever they call it) and that this should be corrected automatically soon when they get around to releasing it?

So now I am back in oz and want to get all my cash back out of the Wizard card without incurring interest charges etc. Based on the above info, I'll be fine if I go to the ATM and do a cash withdrawal of $1400? ie so long as my current balance does not become positive? Or do I need to allow for the amount that the hotels are 'holding'?

Thanks

I'd probably just wait till the pre-auth clears. It normally can take up to 5 days.

 

[Fifa]

And only withdraw from Westpac to avoid fees in Australia!

 

[bits]

I'd probably just wait till the pre-auth clears. It normally can take up to 5 days.

Just in case anyone was interested, I stayed with the Novotel in KL (checked in 4 Aug), then Novotel in BKK (checked in 8 Aug), then Novotel KL again (checked in 14 Aug).

It was not until today (25 Aug) that the hotel pre-auths were removed from my Wizard Card. Anyway, all is cool now and I can get all my cash back