Australia travel advice

[bulb66]

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

 

[TommyV]

I spent £4'500 in 9 weeks in OZ.

But I completely smashed it, it included all my travel down the east coast, all my activities/tours/trips including Whitsunday, Fraser Island, Cape Tribulation, Scuba diving, snorkelling, drinking & recreational events /partying, and a netbook.

I got a greyhound buspass for $500 OZ dollars (cairns > sydney). BUT go to peter pans travel or something and apparently they are as cheap as $350 for the exact same thing (I only found this out after -_-)

Also, if you're booking up tours, try going to the travel agents (based on your flexibility) and ask specifically for last minute deals, I saved the odd $50 on things like whitsundays/fraser island doing this. I know this as it's common ground when meeting new people to ask how much you've all paid for the tour etc.

 

[NiCkNaMe]

Going for a month in 8 weeks Can't wait. Flying into Brisbane, onwards to Whitsunday, back to Brisbane for Gold Coast, then to Sydney and then over to Perth for the final leg.

What visa do we need to apply for from here;

http://www.immi.gov.au/e_visa/visitors.htm

Seems the eVisitor is free, whereas the other are 20$? Is the eVisitor OK ? Flying in to Brisbane, then flying back from Perth.

 

[[TW]Fox]

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

 

[NiCkNaMe]

Looks like the eVistor is fine, seems it was introduced in 08

Travel agent was a bit crap saying we needed to apply for an ETA at the cost of 80 dollars.

 

[TommyV]

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.

 

[NiCkNaMe]

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]

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.

I can't remember now exactly how much it was, but obviously it wasn't for 9 weeks. You are not sat on a bus for 9 weeks either, so that's not a particularly helpful way to compare to cost. As for at your leisure, nothing beats 'at your leisure' than having your own car and not needing a bus timetable

I hired cars between the major population centres, ie when I needed to travel, and then dropped them off on arrival. From memory I had seperate vehicles from Melbourne to Adelaide, Adelaide to Sydney, Sydney to Brisbane and Brisbane to Cairns and a few for the odd day trip. I had about 7 in total.

I distinctly remember comparing it to Greyhound at the time after meeting up with a friend of the GF's and almost falling off my chair at how much her bus ticket had cost. It was more than we were paying to make the same trip in the brand new 265bhp car parked outside the hostel...

You need more than one of you to make the car add up but if there is more than one person check it out because two of those bus tickets are comedy-lol-priced.

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?

Yes, very. It is the Mastercard wholesale rate. It will beat every high street travel agent and every prepaid card.

b) Providing I pay off any cash withdrawals before the payment date, will I accrue any interest?

Yes, you will - interest on cash is charged from day of withdrawl NOT the due date. It works out at about 1% per month outstanding. Which isn't much.

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?

Halifax will not charge you a penny for a withdrawl. Some ATM's may, but otherwise it works like it does here. I was never charged for cash withdrawls from ATM's in 2009.

Cheers

No problems

 

[funguST]

I've been looking at the clarity card. I do remember reading a while ago its best to take cards from different banks in case you have problems withdrawing. Don't know how much of an issue that'll be in oz. Either way my main card is always halifax with a nationwide credit card as back up, it can't compete to the clarity card though. Maybe time to cancel and get a new card.

 

[ThePirateHulk]

It can be an issue. When I first moved out here my card was frozen by my bank 3 times in the week or two before I got myself sorted with an aussie bank account (even though I kept telling them I had moved to Aus and would be using the card abroad).

 

[bulb66]

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.

This might seem a silly question but how do i find out what APR rate i'm on with this card? I've got it, set up online banking, set up a DD to pay it off but i can't see anything that would suggest i'm on the 12.9%, 17.9% or 21.9% rate?

Thanks

 

[[TW]Fox]

You get a letter when it first arrives which tells you the APR.

 

[bulb66]

You get a letter when it first arrives which tells you the APR.

OK, had a read through all the paper work and it looks like i'm on the worst rate 21.9%

 

[[TW]Fox]

It still doesn't work out as much as long as you pay it off quickly

Use online banking to make transfers periodically or something.

 

[bulb66]

What i'm trying to work out is what is cheaper, use credit card to withdraw cash or get a pre-paid card.

If my math is correct it would be

Credit Card
Assuming exchange is 1.517904 (MasterCard wholesale rate)

APR 21.9%
Monthly 1.6639%
£600.00 would give $910.75
Interest £9.98
Total + interest £609.98


Pre-Paid

Exchange 1.48200

£609.98 would give
$903.99

So even with the interest I would get more $ for my money correct?

Thanks for your help

James

 

[[TW]Fox]

Pretty much, yes. Though your calculation assumes you wait a month before paying the balance off. If you paid it off sooner, the interest charge would be lower.

It's good to decide which way you want to manage the card because the Direct Debit will take the full amount due on the statement date about 20 days later irrespective of any payments you make after the statement date. So, if you plan to regularly chuck random amounts of cash at the card to pay it off, either:

a) Pay it off before the billing date

or

b) Change the DD to minimum payment only

 

[bulb66]

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.

James

 

[[TW]Fox]

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?

Correct.

To clarify:

Cash Withdrawls acrue interest from the day you take the money out.

Purchases acrue interest from the day the payment is due. This is typically 26 days AFTER the statement date, so you can actually get up to 56 days interest free (ie, if you buy something on day 1 of the new billing month).

Are they shown and payable separably on the statement?

No. However, any payment you make to the account will pay off a cash withdrawl BEFORE a purchase. So lets consider an example:

You go to an ATM. You withdraw £100 in cash. You go to a shop. You pay £100 on your card for an item (in foreign currency, I'm using sterling just for an example).

Your outstanding balance is now £200.

5 days later, you make a payment of £100 to the account.

This will pay off the cash withdrawl but NOT the purchase. Therefore you would only acrue 5 days of interest on the cash withdrawl, which on £100 would be about 25p.

So as far as cash goes it's best to use the credit card isn't it.

Yes.

 

[bulb66]

Excellent thank you very much [TW]Fox that's made it much more clear to me.

Thanks

James