Cheap Travel Money Discussion Area

zagfles

patrick1 wrote: »

I've just come back from several SE Asian countries. Three things in relation to using cards overseas:

1. I took a Metrobank debit card (Mastercard) but found in Cambodia & Myanmar that there are many ATMs that only accept only Visa or Mastercards but not both. In the town of Kampot there was only one working ATM and that was a Visa one. Fortunately I had a visa card with me too but was stung by nasty fees. Does anyone know of a VISA debit card with no overseas charges/loading?

N&P by the looks of it http://www.nandp.co.uk/current-account/gold-light-current-account/

2. It'd be good to compile a list of overseas banks that don't charge for overseas card withdrawals. In Cambodia ANZ charge US$5 for each overseas card withdrawal whereas Canadia doesn't charge anything. I've noticed the same thing when on holiday in Spain - some banks like Santander charge hefty ATM fee and others don't.

Don't think I've ever been charged by the ATM in Europe.

3. The other issue I've encountered is airport duty free shops that put through transactions as GBP without offering the choice of the local currency. The staff are trained to quickly hit the button and not offer the customer the choice. This has happened to me in Beijing, Malaysia and Bangkok, despite me stating beforehand that I wanted to pay in local currency. They then pretend to be confused and not understand.

Did you get them to cancel and redo the transaction before entering your PIN? Or did they change it afterwards (this apparently can happen and is basically fraud).

John_Pierpoint

patrick1 wrote: »

The other issue I've encountered is airport duty free shops that put through transactions as GBP without offering the choice of the local currency. The staff are trained to quickly hit the button and not offer the customer the choice. This has happened to me in Beijing, Malaysia and Bangkok, despite me stating beforehand that I wanted to pay in local currency. They then pretend to be confused and not understand.

This happens in the "Latin" countries of Europe too.

The only effective way, in terms of time and hassle, to counteract "the machine has made the decision" response, is to get the local currency out of an ATM. Make a huge fuss of paying in local currency by counting out all the local "shrapnel" and the change given as though one is partly blind. If one can profusely apologise to the rest of the Q in the local language that the machine is faulty at the same time, that might just persuade the local manager to play fair.

NiftyDigits

patrick1 wrote: »

I've just come back from several SE Asian countries. Three things in relation to using cards overseas:

1. I took a Metrobank debit card (Mastercard) but found in Cambodia & Myanmar that there are many ATMs that only accept only Visa or Mastercards but not both. In the town of Kampot there was only one working ATM and that was a Visa one. Fortunately I had a visa card with me too but was stung by nasty fees. Does anyone know of a VISA debit card with no overseas charges/loading?

2. It'd be good to compile a list of overseas banks that don't charge for overseas card withdrawals. In Cambodia ANZ charge US$5 for each overseas card withdrawal whereas Canadia doesn't charge anything. I've noticed the same thing when on holiday in Spain - some banks like Santander charge hefty ATM fee and others don't.

3. The other issue I've encountered is airport duty free shops that put through transactions as GBP without offering the choice of the local currency. The staff are trained to quickly hit the button and not offer the customer the choice. This has happened to me in Beijing, Malaysia and Bangkok, despite me stating beforehand that I wanted to pay in local currency. They then pretend to be confused and not understand.

I never let them get away with this one. No matter how they protest that they cannot, I insist that they void it and charge me in the local currency.
They void it and re-present it in local currency without fail.

Stephsie

Hi there, I have read the cheap money travel listing and pages of this thread and I am still confused and would appreciate a little advice please. In February I am travelling to New Zealand, a short stay in Australia, Thailand, Burma and short stays in Cambodia and Laos. From my research I'm considering taking out a N&P bank account for free cash withdrawals, and a Halifax Clarity card for purchases. Would this be the best way to go? I know I need to take dollars out in Thailand to take into Burma as they only have one cashpoint in the capital apparently. Should I also take travellers cheques/a prepaid card? I plan to take a reasonable amount of New Zealand dollars and baht with me. Once I return I won't use the N&P account again - is it easy to close this as I don't want to pay the £5 monthly charge for underuse? Would it be better to just use a prepaid card and credit card? (If so, which ones for these places?). Thank you so much for your help.

murphydavid

Stephsie wrote: »

Hi there, I have read the cheap money travel listing and pages of this thread and I am still confused and would appreciate a little advice please. In February I am travelling to New Zealand, a short stay in Australia, Thailand, Burma and short stays in Cambodia and Laos. From my research I'm considering taking out a N&P bank account for free cash withdrawals, and a Halifax Clarity card for purchases. Would this be the best way to go? I know I need to take dollars out in Thailand to take into Burma as they only have one cashpoint in the capital apparently. Should I also take travellers cheques/a prepaid card? I plan to take a reasonable amount of New Zealand dollars and baht with me. Once I return I won't use the N&P account again - is it easy to close this as I don't want to pay the £5 monthly charge for underuse? Would it be better to just use a prepaid card and credit card? (If so, which ones for these places?). Thank you so much for your help.

Wow Burma is a hard one.

quote from http://wikitravel.org/en/Myanmar

"Be sure to bring a mix of US$ denominations when visiting Myanmar because money changers will not give change and 20/10/5/1-dollar notes are useful for some entry fees and transportation."

So not only get $'s but change it down to small notes before you get there.

John_Pierpoint

Cuba used to be like that 18 years ago.

bhayani

Following the sites recomendation , I took a Halifax clarity card to Thailand.
When I tried to use it here , all the machines charge 150B ( £3 ) which I was not expecting. There a very few machines in Bangkok that do not charge but very few.
Anyway , I decided to take out the largest amount i could to offset this and then get stung by a poor exchange rate.
End result .
£400 transaction cost £7 more then if I hd walked into a one of the cheap exchanges in london.
I could have done even better if I just brought dollars here.

I am in day 11 of a 151 day trip across SE so will get a better idea as i move around but so far , the plastic is not the best way.

zagfles

bhayani wrote: »

Following the sites recomendation , I took a Halifax clarity card to Thailand.
When I tried to use it here , all the machines charge 150B ( £3 ) which I was not expecting. There a very few machines in Bangkok that do not charge but very few.
Anyway , I decided to take out the largest amount i could to offset this and then get stung by a poor exchange rate.
End result .
£400 transaction cost £7 more then if I hd walked into a one of the cheap exchanges in london.
I could have done even better if I just brought dollars here.

I am in day 11 of a 151 day trip across SE so will get a better idea as i move around but so far , the plastic is not the best way.

It sounds like you got stung by DCC. Did the ATM ask whether you wanted to pay in GBP or Baht? Did you select GBP? If so then the ATM bank sets the rate, not MasterCard. You need to choose the Baht (or local currency) option.

If your ATM receipts show a GBP amount, and the Clarity statement doesn't show a Baht amount at all just GBP, then that's what happened.

shar46y

I'm going to Malaysia in April and between OH and I, we have a selection of Cards From Hell (Natwest and Lloyds). Anyway, I would prefer to take a pre-paid card with me. From reading this thread and the guides, I gather that Travelex Cash Passport Globe or Kalixa are the best?

I'd appreciate if anyone has experience of how widely either of these is accepted in Malaysia. It's such a hassle (and embarrassing) when the plastic won't work

NiftyDigits

bhayani wrote: »

Following the sites recomendation , I took a Halifax clarity card to Thailand.
When I tried to use it here , all the machines charge 150B ( £3 ) which I was not expecting. There a very few machines in Bangkok that do not charge but very few.
Anyway , I decided to take out the largest amount i could to offset this and then get stung by a poor exchange rate.
End result .
£400 transaction cost £7 more then if I hd walked into a one of the cheap exchanges in london.
I could have done even better if I just brought dollars here.

I am in day 11 of a 151 day trip across SE so will get a better idea as i move around but so far , the plastic is not the best way.

Take your card and passport in to the bank and withdraw 'over the counter' to avoid the £3 charge. Make sure you check the receipt so that you don't 'choose' for them to convert to GBP for you.