Updates on Credit/Debit cards for travelling.

Just an update regarding the Norwich and Peterborough current account, if anyone is interested.

My parents found out the hard way in Hong Kong that if you have a joint account with N&P that the daily withdrawal limit of £250 is per account and not per card like most other banks. It was a good job they had their Halifax clarity card with them as their N&P Visa debit card wasn't accepted by their hotel for payment either and they couldn't get enough money from the ATM....they were not pleased as N&P hadn't told them this! They were puzzled as to why they couldn't get any money out and it was only because I realised their Visa debit cards had the same number that we took a closer look at the T&C's of the account and found the clause buried in an unrelated section!

N&P also royally messed up with their direct debits when they transferred their account and all their money transfers (although meant to take 5 days) didn't arrive until 7-8 days after they transferred the money.

Also regarding the Halifax Clarity, my parents had no problem going into their online statement and paying off their balance before the statement date.

Hope this helps anyone considering these options. Reply to this

Santander told us on the phone that you have to keep the £10k savings in the savings account/ISA and not touch them for the entire time you want to use the Zero account with no fees. So if you have the spare £10k to keep in there then it's definitely an option - we are waiting for the end of our 3 month period to be able to apply for the Zero account.

Not sure if credit cards work like that with lowering the APR if you prove you are a good customer - they may do (we have only ever had one credit card though, used it once and then cut it up!) so we aren't the best to advise on that. At the end of the day though credit card companies don't want you to pay the balance as they earn more money from you if you just pay the minimum payment each month! Reply to this

I loaded up a 28 degrees mastercard with my own money and it was the best for me when traveling. It didn't charge anything if you had your own money on it rather than using the credit. Reply to this

You may want to check out the Capital One Credit Card. They do not charge ATM fees and will reimburse up to $10 a month in fees from other bank machines. You can earn points toward cash or airline tickets and they do not have any blackout dates. Reply to this

Hey all,

Just thought I'd update as I've now been using the Clarity, for over a month now... We've passed through 7 countries and had no problems at all with withdrawals, apart from here in Mongolia. Mastercard isn't as popular as Visa, so we've actually had to be choosy with which ATM to use, and sometimes even if it says Mastercard on the machine it still wouldn't go though, we have found a bank that works though so all is good.

I've been on the ball and paid it off whenever I could, and the card has been pretty abused (we are a family of 4 after all and we've just passed through Russia, which was THE most expensive place I've been too. I've been to Japan so that's saying something).

One problem I can see is, when your statement is due they take whatever the balance is at that time regardless of whether you've made another payment (that part is pretty slow), so you may go into credit. Not sure if this matters but it does go against their T&C's so I suppose they would be in their rights to cancel the card.

So after my first statement I was charges a MASSIVE 94p interest.... Not bad at all really considering I've probably made 30+ withdrawals and used it to buy loads of other stuff (like train tickets and hotels). Oh and Tina, don't worry too much about which APR they gave you, I didn't get the 12% either, I got 17.2%???. Still really cheap way of getting to your money, so you should still use it!!!

Mike. Reply to this

So how to avoid going into credit if you pay off only what you withdraw??

Not sure, my only advice would be to be careful when your statement comes. They will take that amount on the date so bear that in mind, when paying off the extra.

Re Russia - is it really that expensive?? Can you give us approx daily budget we need when we take the transmongolian??

I think £50 each a day would be a good start, that includes everything though, including train tickets. We went 3rd class from St. Petersburg to Moscow, but 2nd Class Kupe for the rest of the journey which is a bit more expensive but much better security. Due to the time of year we could also book our train tickets on the go without having to worry about availability. The rest of that budget would be staying in Hostels and eating junk food/buying food from a supermarket, sightseeing and getting about within the city. I was shocked by the price of things in supermarkets, I honestly don't know how people afford to eat in that country, I can only guess there are some cheap markets around that as foreigners we couldn't tap into...??? Oh alcohol is suuuuuper cheap, We found a bottle of beer can cost as little as 50p! 😊

Hope this helps,

Mike

Reply to this

Hi Mike,

50£- wow..so I guess if you exclude the train then it would be about 25-30£?? We are planning to start in Moscow but to stop in few (4 places on the way) so good to know we have to budget a lit bit more then. What did you do with food when on the train? Did you do shopping when train was stopping or use the canteen??
B Reply to this

Just got our card agreement- it does not say withrawals are for free though ;-( ow well we will test it in Australia next month;-)
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Just to follow up - we love this card full stop!!! In OZ we made over 30 transactions, some of them really small like 2$ for a coffee and paid around 1.2£ interest;-)Even though we were not very quick with paying it back (did it after 2 weeks)we saved a lot on transaction fees and exchange rates ;-)
thanks to all who contributed with this idea;-) Reply to this

Hi Tina and Rob,
it was the total change for the whole 30 transactions and it could have been lower if not the fact that we paid the balance off after 2 weeks (we have 12.9% rate on the card). We did use it for ATM withdrawals few times and one more thing worth mentioning here is that this card has very good exchange rates (MasterCard) when compared with travelex or other money exchange bureau. When we landed in Brisbane Travelex ex rate was 1.375 (£-AUD) and we got 1.45 when withdrawing money...more $ for our £ ;-)
Thanks,
B Reply to this