Overseas travel and forex - please help.

[Cicero]

So I'm leaving for the UK next week and I'm starting to think about how to pay for things over there.

I dont want to go over with a wad of cash, so I'm with ABSA and I was just going to take my ABSA credit card over and just use that. Perhaps with a little bit of cash or something on the side.

Does anyone know of the fees involved with doing this, transaction costs? Are there any hidden costs/commissions etc?

The other way would be to load forex onto a sort of bank passport card, and use that. But the fees and commissions on those are ridiculous! Around 2% commission payment on the full cash value, and then you buy at their forex selling rates too. Then there are extra costs for withdrawing cash too. Another downside of this is that if you have balance left over on the card, then you need to sell it back, with the commission charged again, and also then sell it back to them at their low buying rate.

Does anyone have any suggestions for me? I dont travel that often clearly.

 

[MKFrost]

1) Let your bank know otherwise they might block the transactions thinking its fraud....

2) Bank passport might work out cheaper. ABSA will charge you a service and conversion fee, best is to get the actual fee structure from them and then compare.

3) Bank passport might be more secure i.e. should you lose it etc....

 

[MKFrost]

You can download the fees for ABSA Credit cards from here http://www.absa.co.za/Absacoza/Rates-and-Fees/Credit-Cards/Credit-Cards

 

[Cicero]

1) Let your bank know otherwise they might block the transactions thinking its fraud....

2) Bank passport might work out cheaper. ABSA will charge you a service and conversion fee, best is to get the actual fee structure from them and then compare.

3) Bank passport might be more secure i.e. should you lose it etc....

Ja, I'll definitely inform the bank I'm leaving.

It looks to me that the transaction charge is actually free for credit cards, but there's a R45 fee for drawing cash from your credit card overseas. Considering virtually everything can be paid via card in the UK I'm not so sure it'll work out cheaper going the passport card route.

 

[MKFrost]

Ja, I'll definitely inform the bank I'm leaving.

It looks to me that the transaction charge is actually free for credit cards, but there's a R45 fee for drawing cash from your credit card overseas. Considering virtually everything can be paid via card in the UK I'm not so sure it'll work out cheaper going the passport card route.

Speaking under correction but you will also be charged a conversion fee for converting Rands to Pounds and I'm sure there was another charge... best is to check with the bank or just phone them