CBA Travel card or Wizard ?

[Cirdan]

I'm looking for a card to use O/S later this year.
Trying to decide whether to get a CBA Money Travel Card or the Wizard Clear Advantage MasterCard. I've read the existing 30 page thread on Wizard Clear Advantage MasterCard, BTW but haven't seen anything here yet on the CBA Money Travel Card or a comparison. One thing that does concern me a little is that neither card has a chip in it and a lot more services are requiring a card with a chip, as far as I'm aware.

 

[markis10]

I'm looking for a card to use O/S later this year.
Trying to decide whether to get a CBA Money Travel Card or the Wizard Clear Advantage MasterCard. I've read the existing 30 page thread on Wizard Clear Advantage MasterCard, BTW but haven't seen anything here yet on the CBA Money Travel Card or a comparison. One thing that does concern me a little is that neither card has a chip in it and a lot more services are requiring a card with a chip, as far as I'm aware.

The money card has a stack of fees, why would you bother: $15 issue fee, 1% reload after 1st load, ATM fees, 2% currency conversion etc etc

If you are after a card for OS use and dont want a CC, try the NAB Gold Visa Debit or the ING Debit cards, not fee free but close and you can shut them down when you get home - no fee.

 

[DrAndyC]

Wizard for sure. Preloaded (in credit) it is a dream for withdrawals etc...and when not overseas I use it all the time for buying stuff online in foreign currencies.

 

[sriver]

Used an ANZ travel card in Japan a year ago, overall you pay more than the wizard card.

If I'd have known about the wizard card before the trip, it would have been the choice for me.

 

[mindsweeper]

Definitely Wizard... Just came back from Japan and loaded my card with $3k credit. Did not incur any withdrawal/conversion/transactions fees whatsoever. Zilch. Conversion rates were between 0.5% - 1% from xe dot com rates.

 

[zig]

Definitely go with the Wizard card.

 

[HyperZ]

I have actually been using the Wizard card for all my travels so far, and am currently looking at the CBA or ANZ travel card.

The advantage of ANZ/CBA is that you can prepurchase credit in the currency you wish in advance (usually they have a 12 mth expiry), so when the AUD was 0.93US, buy some USD if you intend on travelling in the near future. Wizard you are calculated the exchange rate at time of purchase/withdrawl.

Feel free to post any other suggestions

 

[Cirdan]

I have actually been using the Wizard card for all my travels so far, and am currently looking at the CBA or ANZ travel card.

The advantage of ANZ/CBA is that you can prepurchase credit in the currency you wish in advance (usually they have a 12 mth expiry), so when the AUD was 0.93US, buy some USD if you intend on travelling in the near future. Wizard you are calculated the exchange rate at time of purchase/withdrawl.

Feel free to post any other suggestions

Maybe have both and use to your advantage:?:

 

[HyperZ]

Maybe have both and use to your advantage:?:

ANZ looks like the better deal atm, then again i suppose it depends which country you will be travelling to as well, as multiple currency conversions to a non-supported currency (on the travel card) may not work out to be cost effective afterall.

 

[markis10]

I have actually been using the Wizard card for all my travels so far, and am currently looking at the CBA or ANZ travel card.

The advantage of ANZ/CBA is that you can prepurchase credit in the currency you wish in advance (usually they have a 12 mth expiry), so when the AUD was 0.93US, buy some USD if you intend on travelling in the near future. Wizard you are calculated the exchange rate at time of purchase/withdrawl.

Feel free to post any other suggestions

Is that really an advantage, you may have bought at 0.93US but you got a rate thats equivalent to the Wizard card at 0.906 (close to todays rate) because retail rates are around 2.5% lower, then you have the ATM fee of $2.50AUD . Sure you can prepurchase your currency up to 12 months in advance, but you also pay a $3-4 a month fee for the right to do so each month as well as loosing the interest your money might earn elsewhere. The other issue is the limited currencies available, if the AUD climbs after you buy your USD but the SGD drops agians the USD then you have a double loss.

Lets look at what would happen if you bought it today:

$1000 AUD to USD at ANZ to buy a travel card = $875 + $11 AUD card fee

$1000 AUD to USD at current midmarket rates (XE.xom) = $900.20

So you have lost close to AUD$40 or $4% of your money even before you took any out of an ATM or hopped on the plane.

 

[Cirdan]

ANZ looks like the better deal atm, then again i suppose it depends which country you will be travelling to as well, as multiple currency conversions to a non-supported currency (on the travel card) may not work out to be cost effective afterall.

Traveling to the UK, in August. Planning to use the Wizard card to withdraw money as needed and the back up is our Westpac MasterCard .

 

[greenfrog86]

This dollar amount is in addition to your monthly minimum payments that you will use to pay down your credit card debt. The higher this amount, the faster your debt will be paid off. It is important that your additional payment is one that you can afford. For the Roll-down method to be effective you must be consistent in your payments. Should you choose an amount that is too high, you may become discouraged if you are unable to meet your payment goal.

Jehnavi - I would suggest that you read the Wizard thread - this is a product where people load cash onto the card and use it like an ATM card. There is no minimum payment and no 'debt' as you are using your own money.

In general when I'm travelling overseas I use my Citibank transaction account - might be worth considering with no monthly account fee, no minimum balance and no overseas ATM fee and only a 2.5% conversion fee

I worked out that the travel cards were not competitive for me - the transaction account was by far the cheapest option considering my trips are usually around two weeks and I don't withdraw that many times (not that it matters as there is no per transaction fee). You can also take advantage of the 'daily rate' that other posters have mentioned here

 

[markis10]

Jehnavi - I would suggest that you read the Wizard thread - this is a product where people load cash onto the card and use it like an ATM card. There is no minimum payment and no 'debt' as you are using your own money.

Methinks a thinly veiled attempt to build post count so that links can be posted to places we dont want to go.

 

[greenfrog86]

Methinks a thinly veiled attempt to build post count so that links can be posted to places we dont want to go.

Yes - I've just worked this out on another post (after seeing the link...), and have duly reported what seems suspicious behaviour.

 

[Cirdan]

Wizard card arrived today