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

[Baysider]

Definitely put the card in credit. If you take the cash advance first you will pay interest on ALL outstanding balances until your B-Pay is received.

You should still get the Mastercard rate over the counter, but will probably wear some fixed over the counter charges.

 

[lakeman]

Letters: Seat recliners on long-haul flights are selfish
2nd item on this page details a writers problem with their positive balance being fraudulently charged and their concern about insurance not covering a positive balance.
I suspect that they will be fine in the long run but wonder what other members think.

 

[Chicken]

2nd item on this page details a writers problem with their positive balance being fraudulently charged and their concern about insurance not covering a positive balance.
I suspect that they will be fine in the long run but wonder what other members think.

As said many times on this page, this is a myth. Have a read at the terms & conditions booklet included with your card, look at the section of when you are liable or not liable for unauthorised charges.

 

[serfty]

As said many times on this page, this is a myth. Have a read at the terms & conditions booklet included with your card, look at the section of when you are liable or not liable for unauthorised charges.

29 Who pays for unauthorised transactions which are not EFT transactions?

Correct - there is NO mention of any suspension of liability in relation to credit balances.

This part may be misleading:

Another concern is that 28 Degrees's insurance covers the credit-limit amount but not any positive balance. My advice is to load only the positive balance sufficient for your short-term needs. Credit-card fraud is becoming commonplace.

What insurance is this referring to?

 

[Fifa]

Does anyone have any recent experience withdrawing cash in USA atms which are fee free?
There was mention a while back that Chase do not charge fees and I was wondering if this is still the case.

Thanks

 

[SeaWolf]

Does anyone have any recent experience withdrawing cash in USA atms which are fee free?
There was mention a while back that Chase do not charge fees and I was wondering if this is still the case.

Thanks

I'm afraid it's not the case, at least not where I'm at in San Francisco. Tried it last night and Chase wanted to hit me a $3 fee, which seems to be the standard. The only cheaper fee I've found was a Bank of America ATM at the airport, $1.50. But the Bank of America ATMs in the city are all charging $3. Worse still I tried Wells Fargo and it wanted $5!
So far I haven't found any that are free, so if anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear. I've been trying all sorts of different banks.

 

[serfty]

I'm afraid it's not the case, at least not where I'm at in San Francisco. Tried it last night and Chase wanted to hit me a $3 fee, which seems to be the standard. The only cheaper fee I've found was a Bank of America ATM at the airport, $1.50. But the Bank of America ATMs in the city are all charging $3. Worse still I tried Wells Fargo and it wanted $5!
So far I haven't found any that are free, so if anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear. I've been trying all sorts of different banks.

This varies by state - I believe some outlaw or limit such fees.

In any case you know what you are up against before withdrawing.

 

[SeaWolf]

This varies by state - I believe some outlaw or limit such fees.

In any case you know what you are up against before withdrawing.

Yeah, the fee is always displayed before it's charged so you can back out of it when you find out just how shocking it is.
So far the cheapest outside of the airport has been a Bank of America ATM in the downtown Westfield, which was $2.
What I'm doing is using plastic for everything that I can and minimising the use of cash as much as possible so I don't have to make so many withdrawals. I'm down to LA on Monday and I expect the situation will be the same there. Then Toronto, Boston and New York. I'll report back as I go with my experiences.

 

[adrian]

A couple of months back in NY, I am pretty sure McDonalds :shock: had 99c fees on their ATMs..... will be back in NY in a few days, and will probably have a chance to check this.

 

[travelislife]

I have had a friend who I reccomended the 28 degrees card too. She called them up and asked them about putting it in credit and withdrawing from ATMs and that no cash advance fee will be charged. The guy on the phone said that she was not allowed to do this and that it could only be used as a credit card.

I have the card and have used it overseas no problems at all, but haven't been overseas in about 6 months so don't have recent experience.

Anyone had issues here loading in to credit and using as an ATM card?

 

[moa999]

I have had a friend who I reccomended the 28 degrees card too. She called them up and asked them about putting it in credit and withdrawing from ATMs and that no cash advance fee will be charged. The guy on the phone said that she was not allowed to do this and that it could only be used as a credit card.

Those who call will ruin this feature imho. There are enough recent examples on this thread.

 

[serfty]

I have had a friend who I reccomended the 28 degrees card too. She called them up and asked them about putting it in credit and withdrawing from ATMs and that no cash advance fee will be charged. The guy on the phone said that she was not allowed to do this and that it could only be used as a credit card.

I have the card and have used it overseas no problems at all, but haven't been overseas in about 6 months so don't have recent experience.

Anyone had issues here loading in to credit and using as an ATM card?

No problem at all; see this post from last year (click on the link and check the confirming posts following):

http://www.australianfrequentflyer....tercard-cash-advances-6960-15.html#post342237

...

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.

 

[oz_mark]

I have had a friend who I reccomended the 28 degrees card too. She called them up and asked them about putting it in credit and withdrawing from ATMs and that no cash advance fee will be charged. The guy on the phone said that she was not allowed to do this and that it could only be used as a credit card.

That's because it's a credit card and not a transaction account. Ringing them will only result in you getting the party line about what type of account it is.

 

[tgh]

Yes .. we are about to fly and we will just drip feed it a few k at a time , hoping not to frighten the pigeons
We can bank online anytime anywhere these days so topping it up as required seems sensible.

One wonder how long it will all last as we only use it for the occasional os holiday.
I hadn't even seen the new card until I went looking in the file... was still carrying around the old one.
Received it last December

It activated ok so all is good ...

 

[hummel]

Received and activated mine today. 1/10th of the limit that Citibank gave me

Really only using for trip to Singapore/Vietnam next month so won't really need too much cash.

Time to read up on how to put it in credit etc!!

 

[MEL_Traveller]

No problem at all; see this post from last year (click on the link and check the confirming posts following):

http://www.australianfrequentflyer....tercard-cash-advances-6960-15.html#post342237

understand this is possible but to me the economics just don't add up...

if you have $5000 sitting in credit on the card it earns no interest. if you have that same money in a high interest e-saver it earns about .89c a day.

if you withdraw say $300 while you are overseas, that will cost you 20c in interest overnight (at 20% interest).

you should not need to pay anymore than one days interest as you can transfer the money from your e-saver almost immediately to cover the withdrawal. I usually to it next day so that the transfer hits after the withdrawal and covers it.

the other issue is that if you have $5000 and make purchases those come out of the $5000 as does your cash advance.

if you withdraw (without a credit balance) then any money you top up goes immediately to pay of the cash advance. the purchases sit there earning no interest anyway.

over a month, using my system gains about $27 in interest in my saving account, but the interest charges on the credit card (assuming you took out $300 a day) would only be in the region of $6.20...

 

[serfty]

...
over a month, using my system gains about $27 in interest in my saving account, but the interest charges on the credit card (assuming you took out $300 a day) would only be in the region of $6.20...

Fair enough, but I've always been reluctant to do Internet Banking while overseas.

For longer trips, I have set up several scheduled BPay payments¹ to avoid having to log on while at the same time keeping any credit balance to a low value.

At the end of the day, the best use of this card is to avoid the onerous fees² and poor conversion rates that other products may have in relation to Forex transactions.

¹ over a planned period knowing it normally takes 2 working days for the funds to come across these days.
² e.g. Foreign Currency Conversion Fee, Cash Advance Fee (not ATM) etc.

 

[Cynicor]

Mel_Traveller- Your system makes sense but is relatively inconvenient. I use two accounts so that I have a 'cash' card and a 'credit' card, and keep my cash card in a very low positive balance, normally withdrawing in a lump sum as I go. I guess it is just how much inconvenience one is willing to tolerate. Many people don't have this card purely because it would be another card+application+time, even though it could save them a lot of money.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Mel_Traveller- Your system makes sense but is relatively inconvenient. I use two accounts so that I have a 'cash' card and a 'credit' card, and keep my cash card in a very low positive balance, normally withdrawing in a lump sum as I go. I guess it is just how much inconvenience one is willing to tolerate. Many people don't have this card purely because it would be another card+application+time, even though it could save them a lot of money.

ymmv

living overseas I withdraw about $500 in cash a week. part of my security regime is to check my banking on line once a week anyway to ensure no fraudulent transactions. at the same time I transfer the money to cover cash advances. my average billed finance charges are about $2.20-$2.50 per statement.

this is small compared to the interest I earn on the same amount.

thanks to the wizard card, as serfty points out, saving 3.5-4% per transaction in cnversion and other fees is huge over the space of a year.

the earth gold card started out that way... westpac couldn't understand (didn't care) that their product was no longer competitive once it started charging fees for overseas...

 

[cove]

You are doing really well with that card and I am about to imitate you!
Isn't it wonderful how many different companies have filled the empty space that Westpac left when they chose to become pretty useless with their credit cards? The last one left that I can use from Westpac is their Amex Kris Flyer Platinum card.