Hi All,
I just received mine.
Just want to know how to keep fees at pretty much zero.
I have shoppers protection (0.5% of monthly balance) - but if I pay off before the stmt date (ie stmt = $0) - I pay nothing. Correct?
Apparently there is a $2 fee per transaction.
No fee for online stmts.
Any other fees etc I should be aware of?
What rate does GE use for their transactions?
Looked at the wiki on this site but it does not answer my above questions.
Thanks
Thank you all for your answers.
Lahiruwan - thanks. I read the brochure again after your reply, the $2 fee is for non bpay/direct debit etc payments to the card, not for transactions as I initially thought - I misunderstood it.
Sounds good to me - use only for intl pmts (or maybe for items that may drop in price) and pay before stmt date, and no fees payable.
thanks
I beg to differ with the xe.com. i got the card based on that information but have been comparing rates when i was in msia to what was charged on my online card. The problem is transactions dont show up for a few days which i think is crum (i know they have to authorise etc) but an indicative price temporarily would be good. But either way after converting the finalised amount to what the local msian currency was , i found the majority were not near the xe.com rate. It wasn't terribly bad, but it wasn't 'near' it in that sense. I found some stores worse than others, so I'm not sure if certain stores throw a different surcharge onto the amount.
IN particular i found some stores the credit receipt to sign would print a fixed amount or aud amount on it from memory, and some would just be normal, and the first appeared to give the crappier rate? Maybe those merchants fix it (or their credit card terminal provider??)?
There's a trap for overseas purchases. Never let the merchant bill you in Aussie dollars. They may mistakenly think it's the right thing to do, but it's not by you. It may seem counterintiutive but it's easy to understand. When they bill you in Aussie dollars, their bank does the conversion. When they bill you in Euros or whatever, 28degrees does the conversion. The latter rate is more advantageous to you. I got caught by this a couple of times last trip. You have to make sure to tell them before they punch in the amount.
Good post, will keep that in mind. Didn't know that was the case - so as long as it's denominated in local currency (where you're purchasing) then the 28 degrees converted rate should technically be closer to the xe.com rate?
I got caught by this whilst in HK
SaberX I went to Malaysia a couple of months ago and the only store that have a fixed conversion rate is Giordano, all the other stores inc. Nike and all the high end brand actually lets 28degrees to do the conversion which is really close to XE.com as per the first reply.
This is also the case for all my purchases in Singapore and internet purchases thus far
If it helps, explicitly tell them you want to be billed in the LOCAL currency. Worked very well for me in my travels.
Yeah I remember Giordano doing that. I had a few other stores with the same, I figured it was something more common on the AUD denominated ones… but didn't think it could make a diff.. guess i was wrong!!
The issue is do they even choose to bill it in our AUD?? Sometimes it seems liek they just swipe the card and it prints out the AUD amount for signature on. Is that pre-programmed by the store etc? Don't think I've ever seen them choose or been asked for my choice of currency?
If it's fixed into their system/eftpos machine then I guess I can't do anything but then pay cash (pain given you only find out once the signature prints out). If you cancel rather than sign has the money/card been processed technically?
Will try jace, but then overseas workers are sometimes casual students and just so blur/have nfi that that's harder than it seems versus conversing here locally.
simple they make more money on these conversions in the way of rebates etc from their financial supplier, so they "automatically" do it to make more money
Zero fee, as for shoppers pro you are correct
Though be mindful if you don't pay off the balance, you pay monthly protection on the carried amount too.
Any other fees etc I should be aware of?
none other than the late fee (interest) which is quite huge
What rate does GE use for their transactions?
they always inline with the online exchange rate from site such as XE
You're right for the shoppers protection - pay before statement date and you pay nothing.
Generally, I pay after I buy anything so I don't forget.
Don't know about what rates they use but very close to market rates, so much better than currency exchange places, Amazon currency exchange or most things out there.
EDIT: In the time I took to write this, people have already replied!!
Thanks for this. I have had a 28 Degrees CC for about 9 months and never knew that I could avoid paying Shoppers Protection if I paid before the due date!
Just wanted to point out that you will need to pay before the "Statement Date" and not the "Due Date" to avoid paying the shoppers protection.
I know the due date is what appears on the statement but what is the statement date? Do you mean when you receive the statement? So if you normally receive your statement on the 10th of the month it would be the 10th?
If you pay with bpay by the due date then there are no fees if you dont use shoppers protection right?
The statement date is the day they tally up your debits and issue the statement. It's about 3 weeks before the due date. It's shown on the link on your statements page. Also on the statement itself, but it's too late if you are already reading it.
Yes, no interest to pay if you pay in full before the due date. Be sure to allow a few working days for BPay to clear, more if just after a weekend. And if you are slightly dyslexic, it might be an idea to round up the payment to the next dollar, so you don't end up paying $301.68 when you owe $301.86 and lose all your interest free days just because of a few cents.
you can also load it up into credit and use it as a fee-free ATM card when overseas :)
YOu are correct, but when I made an enquirey on how that would work
They advised against it as any money I put on the card
EG: I put $1500 for my next overseas trip
is UNINSURED, they only cover lost money if its THEIR funds
SO If I lost the card and it was somehow drawn out I could not get it back..
MMM food for thought
yeah, they dont like this method they want you to use cash advance feature and make money from you.
thats why they will come up with many reason against.
but note there is no interest for money in there so dont put too much before you fly.
Sure, same as anybody getting hold of any of your card details and PIN. Personally I'd distrust more letting the card out of sight in case of skimming. So that's why I prefer to pay local cash, unless it's a big purchase.
I got told the same thing, but what I did was Bpay a few days in advance to pad out the card just before I knew I was going to withdraw cash.
Just be mindful that your credit limit applies for cash withdrawals even when it is your own cash ie my card has a $2000 limit so I can only pull that amount per month through the card when overseas.
I am not so sure about this one, you do have a cash limit, but I didnt think it was a monthly cap.
Text from 28degrees FAQs:
How is the foreign exchange rate calculated?
The foreign exchange rate is calculated by MasterCard International on a daily basis according to daily foreign exchange fluctuations. The conversion will consist of two calculations if the transaction is made in foreign currency – it will first be converted to US dollars and then calculated to Australian dollars for listing on your transactions.
Using the following link you can workout current mastercard currency conversion:
https://www.mastercard.com/global/currencyconversion/index.h…
Hope that answers your question.
28 Degrees charge about 1% on currency conversion. Before that, when it wa s Wizard credit card, you could get the actual xe rate.
What are you talking about. They do whatever the MasterCard International exchange is. If they charge 1% we could all sue them for false advertising.
what about the bankwest platinum credit card and the citibank plus visa debit card does anyone know if they are also first converted to US dollars and then calculated to Australian dollars for listing on your transactions.? also which out of the three offers the best exchange rate for purchases and cash out at the atm?
I love my 28deg card. Was awesome in Japan! One card ill defiantly keep
"You're right for the shoppers protection - pay before statement date and you pay nothing."
is this the same as having auto debit on due date to full amount from my bank??
or i have to manually pay them before?.
also, before you go overseas, anyone tried deposited some money and then later in overseas use local atm to get some cash (therefore doesnt pay for cash advance fee) ?
will this works?
before you go overseas, anyone tried deposited some money and then later in overseas use local atm to get some cash
Sure. Just don't go into the red.
correct.
eg
then no fee, no interest
then no fee, start paying interest on $100AUD from Day 1.
Hope that helps.
Isn't there an actual atm/fixed fee for withdrawing money from overseas ATM's?? Even if it's preloaded??
Or is it free?
If it's free I'll definitely put some cash deposits in for my next trip so that i can rip out some cash :)
No fee generally, but it is possible that some ATM operators will charge. Haven't encountered one but then I usually use a bank, not an obscure ATM in the corner of a bar.
Can you actually top up more money than your credit limit? Eg, your limit was $1500, and you top up $5000? Can you withdraw $5000 in foreign currency then?
Never tried but I don't see why not. It's a credit limit after all. But you'd be better off depositing that money as you go, if you can. Also there may be daily withdrawal limits, check the small print.
Also, it's a good idea to ring them up before you go and tell them which countries you are visiting, so that when their fraud detection bells ring, they are much less likely to cut you off on suspicion that your card got hijacked.
is that an easy way to do money laundering ?
I wonder if the exchange rate would be better than a bank transfer or the best local money changer.
I used a couple of ATMs that quoted a fee would be charged, but none ever appeared on my statement. I don't know if this is across the board, as I only had the issue a couple of times (both time in Malaysia FWIW).
Nice audit trail you are leaving behind though.
afaik, there's no limit. i've topped up $3000 last time i was overseas, and no issues.
as for fees, i stand corrected, the foreign bank that you withdraw out of MIGHT charge you a fee - but 28 degrees won't
cheers
You wont get charged a fee by 28 degrees. The ATM may charge you a fee though.
In Europe I found the ATM's didn't charge any fees to withdraw preloaded money from my 28 degrees.
In Thailand though every ATM I used would charge something like $4 AUD (which is added to the withdrawal amount).
Better to have 2 cards.
28 Degrees for purchases you will pay off later.
Citibank plus account for your cash, which you withdraw from ATM's.
Both are the same fee free, no annual fee accounts and have similar exchange rate conversion. Less likely to make a mistake.
Also as Citibank interest is low, you can have regular deposits set up while you are away to top this up from a higher interest account. Like Greenpossum says internet access while traveling could be less secure.
That is very good advice!
Yeah in Thailand the ATM's charge a fee which you cannot avoid, but at least with 28 Degrees you don't get another fee on top of that.
I have been around most of South East Asia and Thailand was the only country I found with these ATM charges.
That's not quite true. AEON ATMs in Thailand still have no charge.
And just to add, if you are a careful person who knows roughly how much money is left in credit, and you have secure access to the Internet (i.e. your own virus free netbook or tablet), you don't have to deposit all the money at the beginning of your travel. You can top up as you need to from your bank account.
But be careful, Internet access to your bank and the 28degrees website from overseas could be problematic, the site may detect overseas access and ask you for additional verification by SMS, or just not let you login. You can get around this with a VPN, but this is outside the scope of this note.
In case of Direct Debit, I think you will need to pay for shoppers protection as it gets charged as .05% of the balance due on the statement date. And if you are on direct debit you pay on the due date and not on the statement date. The only way to avoid it is to have a zero balance on the statement date, which means that you will need to make manual payments as required.
I have taken the time to read all the conversations as I am pressed for time however, can someone kindly advise me whether there is a annual fee for having the card?
No
Just a question so thats mean if i dont buy anything from 28 degree
but i have tick the 0.05% protection rate. does that mean i still have to pay money every month for the protection fees even tho it is zero on my balance??
sorry i just sign this up wanna know more about it ~~ cheers~
They adressed this above
You pay 0.05% on the balance as at the amount owing on the statement.
So you make no purchases you will have a zero balance on the statement which 0 X 0.05% = 0
Understand, as others have said, that Statement date is not the due date. Its when 28 degrees issues the statement. The due date is when you must pay off the card to avoid , not the protection fee, but the interest charges 20.99%.
The difference in dates is 25 days. Ie Statement date is 25 days earlier than the due date
So if you buy something of $100 a day before the statement date, a statement is then issued with $100 owing you will pay 0.05% = 5c. If you had a higher balance due to other purchases then the amount would be more.
Now if you bought something at $100 say 7 days before the statement day, then bpayed your 28 degrees card with $100 you would have a statement with zero balance so no fee would be paid.
Notes
Bpay can take a few days to arrive, so if that arrives after the statement day your balance at the time the statement is issued (statement date) you would be charged the 0.05%. So you would have to be careful with playing this game close to your statement date.
Your statement while it might show zero owing, will show $100 charge and $100 payment.
If you find this still confusing I would suggest avoid the protection coverage, unless you are comfortable in paying it.
"Shopper’s Protection insurance premiums are calculated each month at 0.5% of the monthly closing account balance of your 28 Degrees MasterCard. (For example, if your closing balance is $2,000, your Shopper’s Protection insurance premium for that month will be $10.)"
I'd like to point out that the rate is 0.5% NOT the 0.05% as some mentioned above. Tenfold difference.
good pickup
How do you find out The customer reference number (CRN) (is your 28 Degrees MasterCard account number) without receiving the statement in order to pay via BPAY?
Hi you need to call them up.. The crn is different to the card number in the last 4 digits. Although I did use my card number once and it did go through.
If you have a previous statement, it remains the same. (I assume you are accessing your statements online and not paying extra to have them posted to you.) If this is your first statement, then you need to call to ask them, as mentioned by tarken.
Using your card number may result in delays and missing the deadline.
just wanted to say, I did my first os transaction with the card yesterday. It hasn't come through as a charge yet online but I can see remaining credit changed.
They converted last night/this morning at US$1.052, which is very close to xe rate.
Very happy with this
The XE rate is the instantaneous mid-market rate, but it is a very good guide to the rate that your 28Degrees will give you (Mastercard Interbank rate - calculated at close of trade from memory). When I was using the card overseas I actually had a few days where I got a better than XE (at time of purchase) rate.
I suggest we let this topic die, what do you think is going to happen when everyone takes advantage of the shopper's protection insurance without paying anything? It will be taken off! Shhhh….
Honestly, this is no secret. You think the bank doesn't know people will do this? This is exactly what they want you to do. You make your payment at least 20 days before it is actually due, which means they get back their money faster, which means they have more money to cycle back, which means they will need to borrow less. So you see, it works in their favour too.
Exactly. And I bet most people that have Shopper's Protection probably don't even use it (or use it very rarely). I used it once in the three months I had it active before I cancelled the service (I like to pay my debt off just before it's due so I can keep my money in an interest bearing account for the longest possible time). It seems that 28 Degrees is very happy to either make a little premium off you if you don't pay off your debt before the statement date OR to get your money three weeks early and make money of it themselves.
I was told by a lady in my bank that they encourage people to take out credit card insurance and never pay the premiums by paying them off before the statement date. She told me that the staff do the same thing.
I used the 28 degrees card all through Thailand, and it worked well. As others have pointed out, make sure you get it processed in the local currency, not in Aussie dollars. Having said that, maybe due to language difficulties, despite asking them to bill in Thai Baht, they often didn't. I had to get numerous transactions reversed because of this.
just a thought I had while filling up my car today.
The shoppers protection if price drops on an item - I am guessing it clearly does not include petrol??
Anyone know the terms?
Hi all, just wondering.. Is there any other credit card comparable to 28 Degrees?
The Citibank Plus Visa Debit card has no currency conversion fees, but obviously it isn't a CREDIT card.
Ah, I see, thanks for your suggestion. So, in this stage 28 Degrees is still the best, isn't it?
Do you know what the conversion rates are for Citibank Debit by any chance?
It is just the Visa rate, I have no reason to think that it would be better or worse than the Mastercard rate.
This thread is great. I applied for one the other day, today I was talking to the customer verification people. They mentioned that they had been experiencing a greater number of 28 degree applications lately. I suggested that OzBargain might be the reason for that :P
Good product sells for itself (with the help of ozb of course). I applied for one although I have never seen any advert of 28degree nor any sales, telemarketer, etc.
Hi,
I'm pretty new to all this. I'm not sure whether to apply for a 28 degree's card.
Currently I've got a BankWest Zero Platinum (which has "no foreign transaction fees"). No fee's etc.
Is the 28 Degree's card much the same? Or do bankwest have some hidden fee's (like for currency conversion)?
Also- how does paying off the 28 Degree's card work? For example, if I make a purchase of 300 EUR, is it converted to AUD (at their exchange rate) on my credit card statement?
Sure, converted by GE Money.
If you only shop online as opposed to go overseas, a 28 degrees card would be a waste.
The only difference is Bankwest Zero Platinum charges you a cash advance fee and maybe an ATM fee if you use it overseas to withdraw cash from an ATM on credit, whereas 28 degrees has no such fee. I have both cards - the 28 degrees card sits in the drawer and only comes out when we go overseas.
Bankwest Card
- purchases made in shops overseas. Make the most of interest free period.
28 Degrees Card
- cash withdrawals from ATMs overseas. I never pre-load cash onto my card, but rather make transfers to the card periodically to pay it off as I go along. The risk of losing pre-loaded cash if I lose or have the card stolen outweighs the cost of interest charged (pre-loaded funds arent covered if stolen etc..). I think last time for 7 weeks in Europe, I paid maybe $5-10 of interest in total… big whoop.
How does the cash advance work? Do you automatically pay the 20.99% p.a. for one day minimum or something?
Can you avoid the 20.99% if you transfer the money on the same day??
They start charging interest from the time of withdrawal so you had better make the deposit first.
Okay great- so for example if I with draw $200, then deposit the money the next day, I will get charged a day of interest- ie 1/365 of 20.99%?
I'm terrible at math- but this seems like a very small amount? How do I calculate it?
Looks right, but you'd better check with 28degrees. Of course remember that delays in your deposit reaching your account might mean you get charged a few days interest instead of one.
But why would you want to do this? If the cash is to buy something why not just buy it on credit in the first place? Then you don't get charged interest until the due date.
Just spoke to GE and they said interest it charged at 20.99% from the time of withdrawal.
Yep- i plan to pay with it where possible, but definetly will still need some cash option (ie not so touristic locations, isolated places etc)
If you have been following the discussion above you would know that one way to avoid paying that interest is to deposit some money into the account ahead of time.
Hi, I know this is an old post but as there are some subscribers hopefully someone will answer. I am going to bangkok and Hong Kong I have just got a PIN number for my 28 degrees card but it is only 4 digits as opposed to 6 on my normal Visa card. Will this be a problem? I have back ups but would like to use the 28 degree if I can.
I have always had 4 digit PINs for all my card and never had any issues, locally or overseas.
I have used it with a 4 digit pin without probs in Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam.
Thanks for the quick replies.
Has anyone successfully used price protection for air fares?
28 Degrees has just announced a new fee.
http://www.28degreescard.com.au/faqs/cash-advance-fee.html
From the 1/1/2014 any cash withdrawal will be charged a new fee of $4 or 3% whichever is greater (capped at $30 per transaction).
This closes a loophole with the card where people loaded the card with a positive balance before travelling overseas and getting free withdrawals.
From the FAQ:
"Will I be charged a cash advance fee if my card has a positive balance?
Yes, you will still be charged a cash advance fee if you withdraw cash from your 28 Degrees MasterCard even if the card has a positive credit balance. We do not recommend that you load your card into credit as this is not the intended purpose of the card."
The fee also applies to withdrawals and cash transfers within Australia.
It does not apply to regular credit purchases (in person or online)
I have had one of these for a couple of years. Never had shoppers protection.
However, there's no per transaction fee. No overseas currency fees or overseas vendor fees either. The rate is quite close to the one on xe.com. Therefore ideal for internet transactions.