this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2023
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I meant to say something sooner but just a quick review on ubank debit and latitude credit cards for overseas travel in the US.
Absolutely flawless. The only negative thing I could possibly say is that the available balance on the latitude card takes a few days to replenish after you make a cleared repayment. With the limit being only $6k and things being so expensive over there I just had to be mindful. I was only using it for hotels/motels and the car rental and was paying it off regularly so it was never an issue. It was the pending/hold charges which were annoying.
Ubank was spectacular. I used it for everything else without a single complication. The one thing which did suck was nothing to do with the product but more the state of the dollar. Because you're converting at the time of purchase rather than locking in a price like with a travel card or buying cash, if the dollar drops like it was doing while I was over there, things start getting more expensive. If you're lucky enough for it to rise though then it's a great thing.
Anyway, if you've just taken the hit with conversion/exchange fees and other charges with other bank products in the past I'd urge you to look into these options if you're fine with not locking in an exchange rate. I did some quick maths and I was saving around $250ish AUD for every thousand I took out of an ATM compared to just using something like a CommBank EFTPOS card.