To use wise card or not.

[Pushka]

2 hours ago, JohnGc said:

@LittleFish1976

I have another question if you don't mind. Is it better to convert the AUD currency that is in your Wise account to SGD before leaving Australia for Singapore or let Wise auto convert as you spend. My main cost will be the Hotel cost. Thanks.

 

Unless there is something unusual happening with that currency you may just as well wait until the trip. Currently the Yen has been falling against AUD so I'm buying that up but normally I'd not bother. 

[jland]

5 hours ago, cruiser3775 said:

The Wise card is linked to Visa. In general, most places accept Visa or Mastercard linked cards. So if your hotel states they accept Visa/Mastercard, it should be OK.

 

The main thing with credit and debit card use overseas is to make sure you notify them in advance that you will be going overseas. Otherwise, if they suddenly see new charges in a foreign country, they may think it is fraudulent and put a stop on the card.

 

As for getting a credit card when you are retired, there are some cards you can apply for, and a couple of them offer "No foreign exchange fees".  They are mostly very simple no frills cards with a low credit limit, but they will be handy when overseas, saving you carrying much cash. Applying for them does involve a bit of time and effort however.

Here's a recent article with a list:

https://www.finder.com.au/credit-cards/credit-cards-for-retired-and-pensioner-applicants

Scroll down to page 2 to see the ones with no foreign exchange charges.

Upbank state on their app there is no requirement to inform them when travelling overseas. We have never notified them and never had a problem. 
 

 

 

 

[cruiser3775]

13 minutes ago, jland said:

Upbank state on their app there is no requirement to inform them when travelling overseas. We have never notified them and never had a problem. 
 

Good to know.  I'm using my UP card for the first time overseas.  Works well for local purchases. My old HSBC card was difficult. They put a stop on my card twice, even though I had informed them where I was going. I had to phone them to get it working again.

[Sparky74]

I had a Citibank debit card with no fees including no foreign transaction fees however earlier this year it was converted to an NAB card. I need to check the T&Cs but if it now has fees attached I think I'll cancel it and get an Up Card. 

[MicCanberra]

6 hours ago, Sparky74 said:

I had a Citibank debit card with no fees including no foreign transaction fees however earlier this year it was converted to an NAB card. I need to check the T&Cs but if it now has fees attached I think I'll cancel it and get an Up Card. 

We had a Citi bank card as well, cancelled it as our UBank debit card Is just as better.

[LittleFish1976]

On 5/1/2024 at 12:30 PM, JohnGc said:

@LittleFish1976

I have another question if you don't mind. Is it better to convert the AUD currency that is in your Wise account to SGD before leaving Australia for Singapore or let Wise auto convert as you spend. My main cost will be the Hotel cost. Thanks.

 

Okay, I have some data from which you can perhaps make a comparison. I made a transaction today and charged yen against the card on which I have USD stored. Hopefully you can see from this what their real time currency conversion rates are and their fees. I’m including the screen shot of the transaction. If you can download the app you could see how much it would cost you to add that amount of money in cash. I hope this makes sense - I’m afraid my brain isn’t up to doing the calculations but it looks to me as though their rates are very close to the conversion rates I see on the XE app. I wouldn’t hesitate to charge the card with cash for your destination if it looks like the timing is right or if your trip is imminent. 
 

if the yen is falling now I won’t buy yen to charge the card but rather use the usd I have already to be converted into yen - that way I don’t risk having any yen purchased fall further. 
 

hope this makes some sense. 

[JohnGc]

2 hours ago, LittleFish1976 said:

Okay, I have some data from which you can perhaps make a comparison. I made a transaction today and charged yen against the card on which I have USD stored. Hopefully you can see from this what their real time currency conversion rates are and their fees. I’m including the screen shot of the transaction. If you can download the app you could see how much it would cost you to add that amount of money in cash. I hope this makes sense - I’m afraid my brain isn’t up to doing the calculations but it looks to me as though their rates are very close to the conversion rates I see on the XE app. I wouldn’t hesitate to charge the card with cash for your destination if it looks like the timing is right or if your trip is imminent. 
 

if the yen is falling now I won’t buy yen to charge the card but rather use the usd I have already to be converted into yen - that way I don’t risk having any yen purchased fall further. 
 

hope this makes some sense. 

Thanks, once again great info much appreciated.

Cheers John.

[JohnGc]

7 hours ago, MicCanberra said:

We had a Citi bank card as well, cancelled it as our UBank debit card Is just as better.

Just been doing some research on UBank and quite impressed. I like that the interest rate on savings is not bad. Would also solve the spending overseas with no fees etc. I will be able to use it for the hotel payment and spending in Singapore. Thinking of transferring my savings from Comm Bank. If I do I will probably keep Comm Bank account open as a back up.

[cruisine21]

21 hours ago, Sparky74 said:

I had a Citibank debit card with no fees including no foreign transaction fees however earlier this year it was converted to an NAB card. I need to check the T&Cs but if it now has fees attached I think I'll cancel it and get an Up Card. 

The NAB card has no fees

[MicCanberra]

9 hours ago, JohnGc said:

Just been doing some research on UBank and quite impressed. I like that the interest rate on savings is not bad. Would also solve the spending overseas with no fees etc. I will be able to use it for the hotel payment and spending in Singapore. Thinking of transferring my savings from Comm Bank. If I do I will probably keep Comm Bank account open as a back up.

We are happy with the interest rate, the ease of using funds between the spend and saving accounts both here and overseas. The great conversion rates and no fees.

[JohnGc]

2 hours ago, MicCanberra said:

We are happy with the interest rate, the ease of using funds between the spend and saving accounts both here and overseas. The great conversion rates and no fees.

Thank you, sounds good, Have read a lot of reports of UBank blocking accounts, that they think have suspicious activity even though the account holder has notified them they were going overseas, Obviously all finance institutions will do this but their main complaints are that UBank were hard to contact and it took several days to unblock even though they verified that all is okay. Just wondered if you have ever had that problem. Could be very awkward if you have loaded up your card specifically for your overseas trip and could not access your account. Good to hear first hand that you are happy with UBank , it is the head of my list at the moment.

[cruiser3775]

Careful which card you choose. There are two with very similar names. Ubank is owned by NAB. UP bank is owned by Bendigo Bank.

[Sparky74]

1 minute ago, cruiser3775 said:

Careful which card you choose. There are two with very similar names. Ubank is owned by NAB. UP bank is owned by Bendigo Bank.

Which would you recommend?

[cruiser3775]

Entirely subjective and I haven't actually used the card I chose overseas yet. However, I read the T & Cs for both cards after they were recommended here, and on the Canstar comparison site. I thought both would do the job, but I chose the UP card, mainly because I preferred Bendigo Bank over NAB.  The big 4 banks don't deserve much loyalty after what the Royal commission found out.

[jland]

4 minutes ago, cruiser3775 said:

Entirely subjective and I haven't actually used the card I chose overseas yet. However, I read the T & Cs for both cards after they were recommended here, and on the Canstar comparison site. I thought both would do the job, but I chose the UP card, mainly because I preferred Bendigo Bank over NAB.  The big 4 banks don't deserve much loyalty after what the Royal commission found out.

This was the reason we chose UP. We had a Citibank card which was transferred to NAB but didn’t want the hassle of a big 4 bank. Have been very impressed so far (1 year with them). When I send money to UK it arrives instantly at Wise conversion rates. So far so very good.

[Ethel6666]

We’ve used UBank in Singapore, Hong Kong, France, Spain, Norway,UK. And our daughter borrowed it used it in Japan. No issues. I like it because there are no fees, good exchange rate. And also because I just transfer fairly small amounts at a time across from our main accounts at another bank so if it is lost/compromised, we can’t lose much.

[Sparky74]

33 minutes ago, Ethel6666 said:

We’ve used UBank in Singapore, Hong Kong, France, Spain, Norway,UK. And our daughter borrowed it used it in Japan. No issues. I like it because there are no fees, good exchange rate. And also because I just transfer fairly small amounts at a time across from our main accounts at another bank so if it is lost/compromised, we can’t lose much.

Yes, that’s how I used to use the Citibank card. 

[MicCanberra]

2 hours ago, JohnGc said:

Thank you, sounds good, Have read a lot of reports of UBank blocking accounts, that they think have suspicious activity even though the account holder has notified them they were going overseas, Obviously all finance institutions will do this but their main complaints are that UBank were hard to contact and it took several days to unblock even though they verified that all is okay. Just wondered if you have ever had that problem. Could be very awkward if you have loaded up your card specifically for your overseas trip and could not access your account. Good to hear first hand that you are happy with UBank , it is the head of my list at the moment.

We haven't had any issues thus far.

[JohnGc]

1 minute ago, MicCanberra said:

We haven't had any issues thus far.

Thank you for all your help. Always negative reports on all the cards not so on the positives. Hope you are progressing health wise and will be able to use your card overseas soon.

 

Cheers John

 

[MicCanberra]

The next overseas trip is in September as we had to cancel the previous ones. Hopefully I will be back to walking normally by then.

[JohnGc]

Finally settled on UBank. The only thing I am going to sort out is the share idea. I thought it would be like a joint account but they want me to have an account and then the wife have an account, not ideal for us. I am going to contact them after reading the terms and conditions as it looks like if you contact them you can have just the one account that both can use. 

 

Cheers John.

Edited May 4 by JohnGc