Just got an email saying the Coles Rewards MasterCard International Transaction Fee is going to 3% from 1 July.
So annoyed I only recently got the card for overseas travel and online purchases.
Coles Rewards MasterCard International Transaction Fee 3% from 1 July
bobwokeup on 07/05/2024 - 13:21
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the only reason i was holding onto this card from the initial good old days
the credit card insurances with price protection and merch protection right?
any alternative for free international transactions?
Bankwest Qantas if you want points of any kind.
Or CBA Smart / Ultimate - if you hit the required spend each month there's no annual fee. The annual fee is a monthly fee so sometimes i don't hit the spend but only get hit with a $19 fee (for the Smart)
smart awards look like the one to go..
Earn upto 75000CommBank Awards points or up to 30,000 Qantas Points.CURRENT OFFER
Earn 25,000 CommBank Awards points or 10,000 Qantas Points each month when you spend $1,500 or more per month for the first three months. Offer commenced 1 March 2024. Terms and conditions apply.^
Yeah that looks the way to go although “0.6 Qantas points per dollar” isn’t much but better than nothing.
@bobwokeup: Yeah the points earn is not amazing, it's higher on international spend though. Still better than nothing, as you said :)
HSBC global rewards
Good call, can you deposit $2k then withdraw it the next day?
I'm so glad I didn't cancel my 28 Degrees card!
no points though but now I guess it's worth it
probably go Bank West now
Yeah I just read this too. This used to be such a good little card, when you got free delivery and free international transactions and flybuys points! It's definitely not worth the $100 annual fee now though. Anybody got a good alternative?
Agreed it was a great card. I’d like to know what is the best option that has reward points too?! I doubt there are many that have no international fees AND reward points though…
I dunno how up to date this is, but it doesn't look like there's any that offer velocity points. Might have to switch to Qantas.
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/wiki/cards_with_no_overseas_tra…Personally, I don’t mind what reward points I get as I see it as a bonus which I’d love to keep but I can’t see which ones are $0 in that table?
@bobwokeup: All of the cards listed there should have no international transaction fees, though like I say I don't know how up to date it is.
Just saw the email. Half my usage of this card is foreign currency transactions. Have had this card for 8 something years now I think - NAB's acquisition has killed it. Screw NAB.
Love how they call it a "waiver" - it sure wasn't advertised as that!
Yep and as a customer of NAB for years due to the excellent home loan rates we got, they suck, to put it simply.
Sad day. Qantas points are useless to me compared to Velocity. Time to find something else.
Same here, much prefer Velocity but I also like to use Flybuys as well as I don't fly a massive amount. And there are no other cards that earn Flybuys so I'm kind of stuck (I like the flexibility to choose Flybuys or Velocity). I looked at the Velocity High Flyer card as an alternative which I may consider if they make the Coles card any worse beyond these changes.
The cba card earns points that convert to velocity if you choose the option for cba points rather than Qantas points. I was originally going to cancel my cba card and pick up the coles card but luckily didn't take the leap yet lol
I did have a look at the CommBank Ultimate and looks appealing, especially with the monthly fee waived if you put at least 4k on it each month. Could be another potential replacement.
The only reason I'm keeping this card is for the grandfathered insurance / price protection coverage. I've gotten so much back over the life of the card, but it is becoming less and less appealing.
Wasn't this a Citibank product. Now NAB?
Expect all the perks Citibank had is going to mostly be stripped away. NAB doesn't have the global clout.
You wonder why none of the Australia big 4 banks have expanded successfully overseas, it is because the profits are fatter here. Globally there is a lot more competition (and better products)
Not sure, but NAB grandfathered things like fee free international transactions when they took over the Citibank Plus debit card.
They grandfathered PayAll.
Didn't grandfather fee free for life (I am not sure it is for all people or just some people).
They will find ways to squeeze money out of the portfolio.
Did some people lose it? When?
RIP coles mastercard. I will cancel this card after July
Same here.
Not really much options left to choose if you want to earn points -
https://www.money.com.au/credit-cards/travel-credit-cards/no…
This is forcing me to get a US credit card.
The only Australian card I keep is the Amex Platinum; I cancelled all other crap cc reward cards following the crap Royal Commission.
Can we get American CCs or is that b/c you have US green card?
You dont need US green card or SSN to get US credit cards.
I have the Rewards version of this card and yeah the international fee going up to 3% sucks but not a dealbreaker as I don't do many international purchases or travel overseas much. The main change that might affect me is they are introducing a cap to the amount of Flybuys you can earn per month. Any spend above $8000 per statement period will now get 0 points.
I would like to change to a better card but for my circumstances, there aren't any other that are MC/Visa and are linked to money off supermarket shopping that are as good value as this card that I'm aware of.Same I don’t travel much or buy internationally online so this was a perfect card for me. I only used it for international transactions so a deal breaker for me. If you’re spending more than $8k a month there are plenty more cards you could get as well or instead of and still earn reward points.
I did some quick maths and in the past year I did put above 8k per month on the card on average, but it included some big one-off purchases for home renovations which are now finished so I should be ok, but something to keep an eye on for sure.
Gosh big spender haha We haven’t done any renovations but replaced a few expensive things ant home (plus rentals) and spent about $6K a month (on all my rewards cards) at the most. Yeah hopefully something good comes up before 1 July.
The points cap is the sucky bit for me. Don’t do many overseas transactions. Convert points to flybuys dollars. Get a lot more flybuys dollars than the $99 fee. Not sure anything better out there for my usage.
I think some of the nab cards earn flybuys points if that might suit?
Not sure about now, but the flybuys points on NAB cards were nowhere near the coles card.
For those that travel more than I do (once or twice a year at the most), the Bankwest Qantas Mastercard® is probably the best option at $160 annual fee per year, 50k Qantas points (stay for 15 months) and 0.6 Qantas points per dollar.
Sorry (as mentioned above) the BankWest Qantas I mentioned or CommBank Smart Awards for 30k points and no fee if you spend $2k a month. I’m leaning towards the CommBank one.
Did some research last night, on top of the cards listed above for points-earning cards with 0 international tx fees (BankWest Qantas, Combank Smart Awards/Ultimate), NAB is updating their NAB Rewards card on June 12 to have 0 international tx fees (though they're moving from annual fee to monthly fee model like CBA): https://www.nab.com.au/personal/credit-cards/nab-rewards-car…
Ironic when NAB is the one introducing international tx fees on the Coles card
Interesting, i’m at NAB customer with that card and didn’t even get an email.
*EDIT: sorry same but Qantas, hopefully that one has $0 international fees in the future.Yeah I have the Qantas one too, doesn't look like $0 international fees right now but one can hope!
You have to put a minimum of $5K a month through the card though, this will be a deal breaker for some.
Wait what, I get charged a international fee now for purchasing steam games in AUD???
The fee is for foreign billing, not foreign currency 👍
Just cancelled my account today because of the new fee. Got a pro-rata'ed refund based on months.
I found out today that there is a fee for international tx.
Called them to ask since when are they charging for this.
They responded it’s been like this for years 😂😂.I don’t remember seeing the comms email, must have lost with the cash advance ad emails.
Glad atleast I didn’t spend way too much on the flights internationally
what I found strange was last month there was some transaction that incurred fee and some didn't. Purchase made in Australia for foreign airlines incur the fee, but I haven't seen fee for Aliexpress purchase (probably because it went through paypal). Also did a bunch of purchase in store overseas and didn't see any fee (unless it got added on top). It's an interesting development but i won't be using this card freely from now on.
pain :(