Taking £3000 to Australia
- Thread starter Smithy
- Start date
![[TW]Fox](/data/man-of-honor/2009.png){kind=avatar}
I'm beginning to sound like a broken record on this subject.
Leave it in your UK current account, take a Halifax Clarity credit card, set up a direct debit to pay the balance in full each month, spend on the card and use the card for cash withdrawls.
You'll get the best possible exchange rate, 0% charge on purchases and the only fee you'll pay on cash withdrawls is 1% or so max interest between withdrawl time and repayment time.
When I travelled Australia I landed in Melbourne Airport without a single AUD on me - I just used the best value UK credit card for everything.
Worked a treat, none of the cash machines charged me to use them either.
Leave it in your UK current account, take a Halifax Clarity credit card, set up a direct debit to pay the balance in full each month, spend on the card and use the card for cash withdrawls.
You'll get the best possible exchange rate, 0% charge on purchases and the only fee you'll pay on cash withdrawls is 1% or so max interest between withdrawl time and repayment time.
When I travelled Australia I landed in Melbourne Airport without a single AUD on me - I just used the best value UK credit card for everything.
Worked a treat, none of the cash machines charged me to use them either.
This worked before (I took a Nationwide Debit card with about £2k in it for cash withdrawls) but now they all charge.
Though depending on the charge it might still work out cheaper and safer than converting it into hard cash before you leave.
I would raise a Hedgehog and stick £50 Notes to it's spines, when I needed cash I would just whistle, the Hedgehog would roll up and unfurl, pick some cash off his spines and he could roll off again, don't ever put him in your pocket though!
Soldato
- Joined
- 18 Feb 2007
- Posts
- 13,520
- Location
- London
briefcase with hand cuff lock would be my bet
Hi,
I went for a trip around Australia last year - roughly 5 weeks. I used the thomas Cook Cash Passport, worked out pretty well.
All the money is preloaded into Aus dollars, Very small fee for withdrawing money ($3.50 = £2.00?) no fees on paying by card etc. You can top up via internet banking (usually same day when I did it) so you dont even have to do the 3K all at once
You got two cards, both can be used simutanously. If the card is lost, it is covered like travellers cheques
Check it out: http://www.cashpassport.com/1/en/thomascook/
Worked excellent for me and I recommend it to most of my friends
I went for a trip around Australia last year - roughly 5 weeks. I used the thomas Cook Cash Passport, worked out pretty well.
All the money is preloaded into Aus dollars, Very small fee for withdrawing money ($3.50 = £2.00?) no fees on paying by card etc. You can top up via internet banking (usually same day when I did it) so you dont even have to do the 3K all at once
You got two cards, both can be used simutanously. If the card is lost, it is covered like travellers cheques
Check it out: http://www.cashpassport.com/1/en/thomascook/
Worked excellent for me and I recommend it to most of my friends
Last edited:
What a terrible deal - a fee for withdrawing money AND you get shafted on the exchange rate. They'll only give you $1.49 AUD to £1! The real rate is $1.57!
Just avoid anything to do with high street travel agents if you want a good deal.
Last edited:
[TW]Fox;18030913 said:
Sounds good. I've never had a credit card before so I don't fully understand them. Question time.
If I withdraw cash from an ATM in Australia using my credit card, a balance appears on my credit account. If I pay off this balance within a month, I don't get charged a thing, correct? Is the time period for paying off the balance a month from the transaction, or a fixed date every month for clearing all transactions made that month?
This is one of the FAQs on the halifax site for the clarity card.
What do they mean by charging me interest from the date the withdrawal is made?
What exactly is the 12.9% APR? Does that affect me if I'm disciplined with paying off the balance every month?
How would I set up a direct debit to pay off the balance every month without knowing the amount of said balance (assuming it's going to be different month to month)? Alternatively I could use online banking to transfer the money every month.
Cheers.
![[FnG]magnolia](/styles/overclockers/avatars/9.png){kind=avatar}
Caporegime
- Joined
- 29 Aug 2007
- Posts
- 28,768
- Location
- Auckland
[TW]Fox;18030913 said:
Do this.
Yes.
Right, how it works is this.
The APR is the Annualised Percentage Rate - the rate of interest you'd pay over the course of a year on that outstanding balance. Obviously you won't have an outstanding balance over the course of a year, so this doesn't really matter. For purchases paid in full on the due date, no interest is charged.
HOWEVER..
Cash Withdrawls attract interest from the day you make them - so if your billing date is 30th of the month and you withdraw £100 in cash on 2nd of the month, you will pay 12.9% APR for those 28 days.
But thats a very small amount - it works out to be about £1 in interest for every £100 you spend.
If you set the DD to be the full statement balance, it simply clears the full balance each month (As every month the card company requests the full amount from your bank, who then pay it).
In Australia, you will pay for a lot of stuff just on your credit card anyway without needing cash. All the Hostels take card, dominos pizza takes card, all the car rental places takes card, etc etc. So for this element of your spending you'll pay not a penny in interest, not a penny in charges - you'll just get the transaction exchanged into GBP at the current Visa wholesale rate - the best possible rate you'll get.
It's only the cash that attracts the interest, so if you spend £2k on card and £1k in cash you'll pay about a tenner in interest for the whole lot!
Compare this to the hundreds more it would cost to get yourself ripped off by Thomas Cook.
Last edited:
[TW]Fox;18031208 said:
I see. Are there really no further charges? So long as I pay off the balance before the due date, I won't incur any charges (barring the cash withdrawals)?
Indeed, apparently I was confusing standing orders with direct debit.
Splendid. There's one problem though; obviously £3000 isn't going to last for several months in Oz. At some point I'm going to run out of money on my current account and have to do some work, which my employer will no doubt want to pay in to a bank account. I can open an Australian current account for that, but that doesn't help me pay off my credit balance on my UK account.
As soon as I receive my first pay package in to my Oz account, I'd have to stop using the credit card and start using the Oz account for all my purchases. The work I do won't be permanent though and so my pay packages won't be consistent, so I'll be switching between accounts for my purchases. This isn't ideal.
It would be easier for me if I could open an Oz account and transfer all my UK monies in to that account in one hit. Then just use that account for receiving payment for work and for all my transactions.
Correct.
Not many cards are like this, though. As far as I am aware only the Santander Zero and Halifax Clarity will offer you this now.
You will need an Australian bank account for that, yes. But you can then use a card to withdraw cash from that and simply not use your credit card for cash withdrawls anymore.
This will cost you a fortune.
btw do you have work lined up? It's actually really hard to find - the plan was that my GF would find work, I'd fly out and join her. But it proved almost impossible, she couldnt find anything, so we just travelled instead.