ANZ Travel mastercard

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Forums › Finance and wealth management › ANZ Travel mastercard

hairy1

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#61790 24-May-2010 03:27

Howdy Folks,

We planned a trip to the States for about 6 months and after a fair bit of research decided that an ANZ prepaid US dollar mastercard would be a good option. So, I duly bought one and loaded it with our NZ dollars which were converted to US dollars. No problems so far.

We are now in the States and this is where the problems are. Around a quarter of the transactions at stores in the States are being converted to NZ dollars, then converted back to US dollars and then ANZ are charging us a conversion fee for charging items in NZ dollars. These are US bricks and mortar stores including Disneyland.

Has anyone else had these issues?

When I get home we are going to have the headache of trawling through all the transactions and submitting transaction disputes for all these transactions.

I would have thought the ANZ would have had these travelcards sorted. My sister-in-laws card has done the same thing.

Cheers,

Matt.

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ockel

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#333867 24-May-2010 08:40

I have had a National Bank TravelCard and used it for many months. I imagine its exactly the same but rebranded.

Until 20-May-2010 there have been no issues. But since then every transaction has incurred a currency conversion fee despite my USD purchases being paid with a USD travelcard.
Naturally a query has been raised with the bank as this is contrary to the terms of the card at the time of issue and contrary to the published terms on the website.

You may be able to login to the cards website to see your transactions, reload etc and generate a dispute on the fees. Bad news is that the fees for disputes are outrageous.

If you get no joy from the bank then I suggest laying a complaint with the Banking Ombudsman.

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wreck90

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#333873 24-May-2010 08:55

This is terrible.

I'm off to the US shortly, and was considering getting one of these things - definitely not now!!!

sbiddle

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#333878 24-May-2010 09:22

I used a Euro and $US ones last year and had no issues. Seems it's obviously some sort of recent hiccup!

grimwulf

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#333907 24-May-2010 10:20

I used a EUR and GBP ANZ Travelcard last year in Europe and had no problems at all.

Also used a USD one for a recent trip to California - also no problems - paid for flights, hotels, dinner, a trip to Alcatraz, an iPad ;) - although we returned before May 20 so perhaps there has been some change since then?

I just double checked all my transactions via the ANZ Travelcard site and I haven't been charged any conversion charges at all.

Only thing I can think of is that either there's been some change (perhaps a contract renewal not signed with payment provider ;)) or perhaps you mentioned that its a New Zealand card, so they processed it in NZ$ rather than US$?

allstarnz

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#333914 24-May-2010 10:31

was nearly going to get one of these, but not any longer.

BlakJak

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#333926 24-May-2010 10:44

I usually travel with a combination of

a) local currency in cash

b) big-ticket items via my (NZ) credit card, and I wear the fees involved.

Helps that most of my trips have been for sub-2-weeks (usually about 6 days).

A 'local currency' credit card actually seems like a smart idea, but it sounds like the banks havn't quite gotten it right yet...

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graemeh

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#333941 24-May-2010 11:11

Is the store "helpfully" charging you in NZ$? (the way the duty free stores do).

hairy1

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#334358 25-May-2010 10:18

Well, now back in the country and have been charged a total of $37 USD in currency conversion fees across 13 transactions. There was a transaction on the 17th it occurred on and from the 20th every transaction incurred a currency conversion fee. ANZ are going to ring me about what they will do. They sounded a little perplexed. It also happened to the Sister-in-law who had the same type of card.

Cheers, Matt.

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