What about a greyhound bus pass? I have been looking at them, they seem to do most of the popular routes and there are plenty of options. Not sure if anyone here has used them before though.
Thanks i'll take a look
J
What about a greyhound bus pass? I have been looking at them, they seem to do most of the popular routes and there are plenty of options. Not sure if anyone here has used them before though.
[TW]Fox;23638404 said:For two of us hiring a nice car and fuelling it was cheaper and faster and more fun and plain better than Greyhound. The 265bhp Falcon XR6 was best. $500 for a bus ticket is crazy
It cost less than AUD$1000 between you two to travel cairns > sydney, in car rental and fuel, at your leisure, over 9 weeks? You gotta be kidding.
Fox - ref the Halifax Clarity Card... you mentioned this is the best card to use for taking cash out overseas?
a) is the conversion rate favorable?
b) Providing I pay off any cash withdrawals before the payment date, will I accrue any interest?
c) I'll be taking about 6k and will probably want to withdraw all of this over the course of a number of transactions, do you get charged per withdrawal or can I use it like I would in the UK?
Cheers
[TW]Fox;23616045 said:The Halifax Clarity is a fee free credit card. Halifax will not charge you for:
a) Cash Advances (ie, withdrawing cash
b) Foreign transactions
Nor will they apply foreign exchange rate loading (Everyone who offers you 'commission free' exchange does this - they dont charge commission, they just give you a crappy rate!)
Essentially this means that whenever you buy something, or withdraw cash, you get the Mastercard base rate - pretty much the best rate a tourist can ever hope to get.
The *only* 'catch' is that if you withdraw cash, you are charged interest at your stated APR from the day of the withdrawl (Whereas on purchases you only pay interest after the due date). On a car with a 12.9% APR this is basically about 1% per 30 days outstanding. In other words, a trivial amount.
Set up a DD to pay the card, automatically, in full each month and its as close to totally zero cost, totally flexible and perfectly secure foreign travel cash as you are ever likely to get.
When I was there, 2009, ATM's didn't charge me.
Do a bit of research. Get a quote for a flight from, say, Perth to Sydney for 4 months time. Then get a quote for one next week. This will tell you if there is any benefit to booking in advance.
The low fee airlines are Jetstar (This is Qantas low fare airline) and VirginBlue. I flew with VirginBlue from Cairns to Melbourne and it was fine.
Do bear in mind that Oz is now very, very expensive for British tourists. The exchange rate has absolutely collapsed - previous when it was between $2 and $3 per £1 it made an expensive country just about acceptable. But now its $1.5 to the £1 it makes an expensive country even more expensive.
[TW]Fox;23680773 said:You get a letter when it first arrives which tells you the APR.
So the interest would be calculated to the day on the withdrawal but for purchases as long as i pay it off in full with a direct debit i won't be interest?
Are they shown and payable separably on the statement?
So as far as cash goes it's best to use the credit card isn't it.