herrchook

Most of our money has already been transferred to our Aus bank account but we're now at the stage where we're thinking about getting money for our stopover in Singapore and for those first few days in Oz.

What would you guys recommend as the best way to do this? Did you take travellers cheques, or just cash and credit cards?

cheers

Stitch

Hi Gill,

Was going to post down your socks and the like but thought about it again. Miust be getting a bit scary there right now....You'll be fine, honest. As for the money thing we brought over Travellers Cheques and cash for Oz till we were able to get our cards etc for the bank account. Too some stopover money as well....

Cheers
Ginny

Pollyana

Cash and credit cards are fine. You can get cash from the ATM machines (which are everywhere) if your credit cards have a pin number. Travellers cheques are just unnecessary hassle these days I would've thought.

yanH

When we first got over here we just used our UK bank and credit cards until our Australian cards were issued. These worked without any problems at all. We had a HSBC Switch card (used this for withdrawing cash from the ATM) and a Visa credit card. They don't use chip and pin here for credit cards by the way.

Stitch

They use chip and pin in some places...and still have you sign for it. Well up here in Qld they do.

Cheers

Ginny

AndyR1976

I always take simply a few grand in cash and then my cards!

travellers cheques ......haven't seen those for YEARS!!

If you want to set up a special account the POST OFFICE now have a credit card with no fees or exchange fees for withdrawing money in another country!

Remember that if you take more than $10,000AUD (about £4,000) in cash into Australia you'll have to declare it to customs.

Emmanuel20

I cant remember the last time I used travellers cheques! I think they'll go the same way as cheques very soon.

We're heading to Oz in October and I've just been looking into accounts and the easiest way of transferring money without having to constantly pay commission/fee's.
I'm with HSBC and they have branches absolutely everywhere all over the world. Go somewhere like the far east and you won't be able to move because of them. This goes for all cash machines in general.

I think your bank (switch/maestro) and credit card should suffice, thats what we plan on taking. We're planning a months holiday in S.Africa before we hit Oz (so if there's anywhere where machines shouldn't be as abundant, this would be it.) but even if there aren't cash machines every 20 feet, I think you'll be pushed to find somewhere that doesn't take plastic as payment.

As for taking cash into Oz, again if you have an HSBC account you'll be able to easily open one in Oz and the bonus here is that they have your credit history so you get an instant credit rating instead of having to wait twelve months if you opened with ANZ, Commonwealth etc.
Finally if you want to transfer money from UK to Oz or vice versa, I've found that most banks operate the same system which is to just give you the rate they have for that day (which is ussually competitive enough). I'm sure if you sought a broker they may be able to give you a penny/cent or bit more maybe than the bank, however this would sissapear straight away via their commission.

Good luck!