I usually go to Europe and take a 28 degree credit card and a Citibank Plus card for day to day withdrawals and purchases.
I’ve not got a Macquarie transaction and savings. And I see the debit card says free international ATM and purchases.
That seems good as I don’t need to transfer to Citibank. Is there any downside to using my Macquarie bank card overseas instead of my tried and tester Citibank card?
Maybe they burn you with a crappy exchange rate or something? Some weird hidden fee?
Fee free ATMs
We won’t charge you ATM fees anywhere in the world^.
Enjoy a refund on fees incurred at all ATMs in Australia.
Bring 2 or 3 debit cards with you just in case something happened to one card then you still have your backup. I learnt that lesson when my HSBC debit card was defected while I was overseas and no ATM accepted it.
Yeah. That’s the safest bet. I’d take both. I guess the way to find out is draw €100 from both cards at the same time. And then look at the amount of AU$ that gets taken from each account.
They'll do the same thing. Both cards are Mastercards and you should get the exact same Mastercard rate.
Citibank Plus is great and it's so widely recommended (like the 28 degrees credit card) because it had this benefit when most other banks were still charging 3% on international transactions (plus an additional ATM fee), but this offering is not unique any more as many other cards exist now that do the same thing.
One marginal benefit to Citibank compared to Macq is that some countries have ATM fees everywhere, but you'll be able to use your Citi card fee free in Citibank ATMs (e.g. USA, Thailand) whereas for Macquarie you'll just have to eat that ATM fee.
Seconded on Citibank ATMs; they can be hard to find but if they exist they’re a godsend. The Citi ATM in MNL Airport was the only fee free atm I found over there
^
We will refund fees charged to you by domestic ATM operators in connection with domestic ATM transactions, but you’ll need to pay any other fee that you’re charged by any international ATM operator.