HELP! Money /cards/travellers cheques abroad

vassiliki

I'm off in a few days on a 7 month adventure to Japan, Australia, New Zealand and India. I stupidly didnt do much research on bank charges, thinking that my current bank (NatWest) wouldn't charge me much to withdraw from an ATM or do a point of sale transaction... oh dear, how wrong I was. Anyway, it is too late now to get a post office or santander zero card so Im going to try and get a travelex cash passport. I've also bought some yen and australian dollars from the post office. However, I want to take travellers cheques too - i think! Do I? What currency should I buy them in? Eeeek... its too much for my brain to take in! haha! Thank you for any advice you can offer.

dzug1

It would be worth getting a travelex cash passport - so you have more than one source of cash. Don't fool yourself that it's going to cost you any less than your Natwest card though - the exchange rate that travelex use loading the card isn't that good.

And use your Natwest card - yes its charges are higher than the average card, but it's too late to get a better one and in the grander scheme of things it's not THAT bad. Make sure you use it for higher value transactions to 'spread' the fee out.
(I'm assuming you have their new visa card - if not you are in trouble as the Maestro ones are being phased out ahead of their expiry dates and will stop working at some stage in your trip - probably early on)

vassiliki

Thank you for your help - no I dont have a VISA card - i have a natwest maestro and a natwest mastercard - eeeek! im in trouble arent i!! I had better pop into my branch and see if theres anything they can do