Choosing the right credit/debit card is essential to maximize the frequent-flyer points that you accrue before and during travel, but also to ensure that you get a decent exchange rate from your home currency to the currency of the countries in which you are travelling.
Note: this section refers primarily to Australian financial institutions, but the same general principles can be applied in any country, and online advice and resources are readily available.
Travel Credit Cards
If you haven’t already, it makes sense to sign up for a credit card that allows you to accrue frequent-flyer points for your chosen airline as you make purchases in your home country. Most banks offer this option with a bonus in the form of free points when you sign up for the card itself. In general, these cards also offer quite competitive exchange rates when paying in a foreign currency.
At the time of writing this article, the cards with the largest sign-up bonuses in Australia are:
- Westpac Altitude Black credit card (100,000pts)
- ANZ Frequent Flyer Black credit card (75,000pts)
- Citi Rewards Signature credit card (75,000pts)
- HSBC Platinum Qantas credit card (60,000pts)
Credit cards should always come with a word of caution, however. Despite obtaining large numbers of free points upon sign-up, many of these cards also have large annual fees and minimum spend requirements, and can even charge exorbitant fees for overseas transactions. Please ensure that you read the fine print before signing up for a card, including the annual fees, the cost, if any, of cancelling the card in the future, the minimum term of the credit card, whether there are overseas transaction fees and, of course, the interest rate applied should you accumulate credit (which I’d never recommend to anyone). Also, the likelihood of you spending enough to warrant a credit card if you travel using the methods in this article is extremely low so perhaps the debit cards described later in this article will be more suitable.
Great resources for Aussies comparing credit cards online include Point Hacks and Credit Card Compare. For readers in other countries, a few simple search queries online should point you in the right direction. In the USA in particular, there is a host of sites about point-hacking and methods for maximizing loyalty rewards using credit cards.
Travel Debit Cards
If you aren’t a fan of credit cards or simply can’t apply for one due to unreliable financial circumstances, then a travel-specific debit card could be your best bet.
Visa And MasterCard Debit Cards
Most bank accounts will be accessible overseas by a Visa or MasterCard debit card that generally comes as standard when you sign up for an account. These usually work abroad but don’t offer the best exchange rates and can even hit you with substantial transaction fees if used overseas. As a result, I usually have one or two of these cards with me to be used as a last resort if for some reason my more specialized travel card is unavailable or doesn’t work for a given transaction. That said, some banks may offer debit cards suited to travel that offer decent exchange rates and low or no international transaction fees. Some of these may charge a fee when transferring funds on to them, however. Contact your bank well in advance of your adventure to ask if they have any solutions that may work for you. As always, read the fine print!
Travel Qantas Cash
Qantas Cash is my go-to debit card. I don’t use a credit card but still want to earn points and despite the lack of a sign-up bonus, I still get one Qantas frequent-flyer point for every dollar in equivalent currency I spend outside of Australia. This card operates exactly like a regular MasterCard, so you can use it online, and I rarely have ATMs refuse it even in the most exotic locations around the world. The only thing to be mindful of is that when you load currency onto the card via the Qantas Cash website or your online banking (BPAY), you need to allow one Australian business day for the transaction to complete. So if you are loading cash on a Friday, it will not appear on your card until the following Monday or Tuesday. Another benefit of this card is that if stolen, it isn’t directly connected to your primary bank account, and you can transfer funds back into your bank before cancelling the card. Qantas Cash is regularly rated by finance industry aggregators such as Canstar as the best value travel card in Australia.
