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Best Credit/Debit Card for international travelling

  • 14-06-2016 12:06pm
    #1
    coldpaw
    Registered Users Posts: 133 ✭✭


    Hello all,

    Right now I have my savings in ireland (AIB) and my wages are paid into Australian Bank account (Comm bank) . Myself and the missus are planning to do a couple of months travelling from end of this year, so i'm looking into getting a credit card/debit card I can use for : making purchases abroad, online and for taking out cash at an atm.

    They crucify on the Australian cards so that's a non- runner. I still have an AIB Student mastercard (12 years later!). It's better for online purchases and even paypass abroad - but charge you a hefty bit for atm withdrawals.

    Any suggestions - is there a better AIB card or even something else? I've just heard about a Revolout card which sounds good in theory but wonder if anyone has actually used it in say Indonesia or South America?

    Cheers,

    Barry


Comments

  • #2
    coldpaw
    Registered Users Posts: 133 ✭✭coldpaw


    +bump+


  • #3
    ludite
    Registered Users Posts: 48 ✭ludite


    In my experience the best option is a credit card with a positive balance.
    ie a credit card used like a debit card.
    Not sure what the terms of your AIB student mastercard are but my credit card is with AIB and if you have a positive balance in it then you don't get hit with the hefty penalties for using it at an ATM. So you could put some of your savings into it and use it as a bank account effectively while you are traveling.

    The reason it works best is that you seem to get a better exchange rate on the currency transactions. you know the way there is a buy & sell rate in the bank when you exchange money and you always seem to get the one that suits least, it seems to be the other way around with a credit card. So even though you are (e.g.) converting dollars to Euros you get the rate for converting Euros to dollars (I might have that the wrong way around)
    Maybe try it out on a transaction before you start traveling?
    Obviously if you are running a hefty negative balance on the credit card already this might not be an option, you'd probably need to get a second credit card and then you get hit with a second stamp duty.


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