I have credit card sorted for Japan trip next year.
Was hoping someone with actual experience can confirm the following:
AEON bank ATM does not charge operator fees.
7/11 ATM do not charge fees for Mastercard debit as I’m thinking of getting a Macquarie account for this purpose.
Was the card you used with 7/11 Mastercard?
I did too. Yes it was a mcard
Ah cool. Yeah earlier this year when I was there my ubank visa debit incurred a 220 yen fee from 7/11. This time I’ll get a Macquarie bank account to be prepared.
@snappywan: Is the NAB debit card that replaced Citibank Plus mastercard? 7/11 ATMs charged a pretty significant fee on that.
@SlickMick: No, NAB classic debit cards are VISA.
It's a good VISA debit card when international transaction fees are nil so I would keep it still.
But get yourself a debit mastercard… Macquarie, Bankwest or UP are the usual MC choices.
One should always have more than one debit card from different banks when traveling anyway. Sometimes, the ATMs don't want to play nice with a card so being able to use an alternative can be a life saver (especially with fast transfers between banks being prevalent these days). Dad goes traveling with 3 different no international transaction fee debit cards.
@SlickMick: Interesting, as the NAB card is supposed to be exactly the same as the old Citi card.
The fee must be from the ATM itself, not the bank?
Off memory, to be totally fee free (with this Visa based card), you need to use an ATM with the plus symbol (little cross) that you will find on the back of your card. Should be no charges there. Also, you will get the best FX rates during the day, mid week. Banks factor in an 'insurance buffer' on weekends to cover any potential swings on Monday morning.
Yes
I don’t know why it was classified as gambling
Private ATM, like they have at the casinos ?
Nah it was in a seven eleven
They're not a bank…
Yep, ATM's in/around/near gambling venues fall under the same classification as gambling, as you could easily clean out an account and throw it at the casino.
I was in Japan a few weeks ago and used the 7/11 atm’s with no fees charged
Was the card you used Mastercard?
Yep. It was the westpac travel card
amazed you didn't get any fee's charged. like your card might be free but when i was there, the ATM charged us an ATM fee, was 100-200YEN can't remember but that was a fee the ATM imposed for the transaction.
What amount of yen were you withdrawing?
various amounts but i think we did $200 or $300 aud 2 times but yeah got charged an ATM fee - no biggie but yeah
I just came back 2 weeks ago from spending 15 days in Japan. Brought around $1000 in cash, only needed to swap $600 to JPY as mostly I was using my fee free credit card from Bankwest (Zero Platinum Mastercard). I mainly used cash to top up my IC card for trains & buses.
I do have a fee free ATM card from Bankwest for just in case (which was never used) - link to the card https://www.bankwest.com.au/personal/bank-and-save/bank-acco…
I feel Japan is so much more credit card friendly these days that I don't feel the same (had to have cash) anxiety like I used to.
They resisted for so long!
Brought around $1000 in cash, only needed to swap $600 to JPY as mostly I was using my fee free credit card from Bankwest (Zero Platinum Mastercard).
What kind of place in Japan did you exchange $600AUD cash to JPY cash?
The fees are around $3 a withdrawal. In all honestly, you should just use the most convenient ATM to your location rather than trying to chase down an ATM in a massive new city, when you would rather be enjoying your holiday.
People worry about the weirdest things. It's like the threads about FX and they're only exchanging a few hundred….it's maybe $20 at worst.
Spent 3 hours walking in Makati, Manila trying to find a fee-free citibank ATM (did not realise they had been bought out by another bank) - got to see the sights and work off a few calories in 37 degree heat!
Love how people think its thier business to tell people how to mamage their money. If someone wants to be in the know on how to save some money whilst travelling, thats their business. If you have no concerns about finanaces and can take fees on the chin then good for you.
When you post on the internet seeking information or advice, you open yourself up to the opinion of others. You must be new here, welcome to the internet @hazzard.
We shopped around for the best FX in Bali, then spent the rest of our holiday fighting to get our money back after a few notes apparently slipped out when handiing over the cash.
We don't do that anymore.
711s are on pretty much every block in the major cities in Japan so it's not really something one has to go chase down. And it may not be a single withdrawal that people need to do.
A bit of knowledge can help avoid unnecessary fees.
I believe the fee for withdrawing $100 with a visa is $1.10 at a 7-11.
As another posted above, it really doesn't matter. You can arrive, withdraw $300, pay your $1 and enjoy your holiday. Its not going to break the bank.
It was substantially more than that for me (mc I think). I don't think it was based on the amount withdrawn, it was just an ATM fee.
We carried wads of cash to avoid excessive fees… if if I could find fee-free ATMs I'd just withdraw cash as I needed it.
It's true, it's not a lot of money in the scheme of things. But then, maybe I didn't need to bother with a travel-friendly card and should just use my usual card. It all adds up.
You should be looking at the FX rates too if you are going to be cashing out large amounts. I have a Bankwest Mastercard debit and a UBank Visa debit. Afaik Bankwest use their own FX rate, while UBank uses the Visa network FX rate. It worked out cheaper to take the 220 yen fee when withdrawing 100,000 yen (max amount per withdrawal) from the UBank card rather than the Bankwest card.
Just don't use the dedicated FX exchange ATM's that are everywhere, the rates are truly atrocious.
Used AEON ATMs last month with MC and no fees.
Note most places I came across in Japan took CC without issue or surcharge. For a 2 week trip, I would say I would have been forced to use 500AUD cash at most.
Yep, big difference to when I went between 2016 and this year. You can now use credit cards at all the convenience stores which was huge imo. Japanese coins are a pain. 1 yen coins are such a waste of time.
ps. If you have a lot of coins, you can just go to 7/11 when buying something and just dump it all into the payment machine. It will accept it all and give you back the biggest coin denominations it can.
The main use I found for cash was for transport/loading ICC card.
and buy JPN Itunes. For some reason, they don't want Credit Cards
Just use 7/11 they are everywhere and easy to use
Debit card with Mastercard logo won't cost at 7-11 ATM to withdraw. Visa debit card however will cost you. HSBC Everyday Global (with Yen) will cost you 220yen for 100,000yen withdrawal.
It might depend on the bank that issues the Mastercard. According to CBA, it appears you pay $5AUD plus 3.5% of the transaction amount for cash withdrawals overseas using CBA debit Mastercard, except for NZ $2AUD
You guys are talking about two different fees.
In a very basic way of explaining it, when withdrawing cash, you can be charged by the atm operator and you can be charged other fees by your debit card issuing bank.
If you use a mastercard between 7am and 7pm at a 7bank atm in Japan, the atm operator won't charge you a fee.
This leaves choosing a MC debit card that has no international transaction fees and no overseas atm withdrawal fees. Commbank isn't one of them. Macquarie, UP and Bankwest are the main options now.
I went in April. Macquarie card doesn't incur any fee in Seven Bank ATMs (either in 711 or in Seven Bank booths); but you will see fee in ATMs in other convenient store like Lawson etc.
To be clear about the fee free withdrawals at 7 bank ATMs for Mastercard debit cards, it's only between 7am and 7pm.
Mum and Dad had success with Macquarie when over there a few months back.
Seriously?
Maybe that's why we got hit with fees and noone else seemed to.
I was wondering why I was always prompted with a 110/220 yen fee when trying to withdraw with my Ubank card even though it's meant to have no international fees. Didn't know about the Visa surcharge.
Makes sense why my Up card never had a fee. (They use Mastercard).
It's not a VISA surcharge. It's the ATM fee charged by the ATM operator.
Your both your Ubank and Up cards have no international transaction fees… but those are the fees that the card issuing bank. The ATM operator may still charge a fee that your card issuing bank has no control over.
It just so happens that 7 bank have an arrangement where Mastercard debit cards are fee free from 7am to 7pm.
There's a pretty good summary of all the banking fees you can expect to encounter whilst conducting international banking…
Thanks, pretty informative post. I already knew about stuff like DCC (one of the biggest scams) but was unaware of the 7 bank agreement.
Kinda sucks because a lot of my bank cards with no international fees are Visa but that's not really the bank's fault I guess.
yeah haven't found a ATM free atm withdrawal, we got charged 100-299YEN for 7/11 atm but heard AEON could be free.
its not going to break the bank this fee since its like $1-2 in the end but yeah as someone said above its not going to break the bank
i would bring about 1k cash worth and then you can always take out cash if required since you would want to try and use your credit card (with free international transactions)
Get Revolut with the physical card, found that super useful for cash out. Low fees, PayId.
Just came back, the seven eleven didn’t charge any fees for my withdrawal. Can’t comment in AEON bank.
Just something to be aware of, I have gambling transactions locked on my card and when I tried to withdraw money it said it was not allowed due to this. So I jumped into my settings and turned the gambling lock off, but it was a 48 hour wait. I don’t know why it was classified as gambling, perhaps because this particular one was in the general vicinity of a casino type place? Was frustrating because it was our last day and I needed the cash for our final train trip, had to use another card that had foreign transaction fees.