Croatian spending money?
Our adventure is getting closer and the issue of how to handle our spending money has come up again.
We have a Post Office credit card which we use for foreign travel because we thought it was free from charges whilst abroad when withdrawing cash. However if I'm reading the information correctly there is a charge withdrawing from ATMs.
Is it a good idea to use a Preloaded cash card or to carry cash and change as we go?
Seasoned travellers' suggestions welcomed.
Comments
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We, as do many others, use the Halifax Clarity Credit Card. No foreign currency charges or other charges even on cash withdrawals. If you do draw cash you will pay a very small amount of interest but even that can be avoided by effectively pre-loading the card with credit. In Croatia some cash is helpful as not everywhere accepts credit although most places do.
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Yes good old Halifax Clarity - have used it everywhere. I had an ATM in Laos tell me I could use it to draw three million Kip per day. Does Croatia have funnier money than that?
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Many thanks for all of the replies.
The Clarity card sounds a good one, how do you preloaded a credit Card?, That's a new one on us.
I know we sound a bit dim, but we are way behind all these different forms of finance. We do not bank online and if we can''t pay the bill off at the end of the month we do not use the credit card.
We really are old fashioned.
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The one slightly awkward thing about the Clarity card is that as soon as you draw cash on the card from an ATM you pay interest on that cash (only the cash) at the cards APR. Unless you draw alot of cash the interest is likely to be a small amount (pence) as in the ordinary course of events you would pay off the balance when due. If however you really want to avoid paying any interest what you need to do is pay the balance off immediately however unfortunately this needs to be the entire balance as non cash items are deemed to be paid off first and if you are abroad this can only be done online.
To avoid this issue what some people do, including us, is to have two Clarity card accounts we use one for normal purchases and pay this off as you normally would i.e about 3 weeks after the statement date. The second card we use just for cash withdrawals and what we do is to pay it off immediately or even just before we draw cash so that the balance is always kept at zero or thereabouts. This might sound a bit trivial but in our case we do sometimes draw quite large sums of cash to pay for accommodation etc and therefore the interest can build up.
If you just have a single card and operate it as you normally would any credit card it is still well worth having as the saving on forex fees can be quite substantial especially if you have something like a french toll tag that changes to your account. The forex rate you get is also the full money market rate and cannot therefore be beaten.
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We holidayed in Croatia twice in recent years, and the exchange rate was generally better there than it was here. Lots of Trip Advisor comments suggested it was better to simply use your UK ATM current account card to withdraw in local currency from ATMs. So that's what we did. A small charge on each withdrawal, but the ease more than offset that for us.
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Rather than worry about Kuna, there's a dire shortage of tonic water in Croatia, so if you like a G&T to start your evening, so take a stock with you. On the other hand, very good wines are plentiful, and at reasonable prices.
Everyone will adress you in German, until you speak English. Better still, try a few words of Croatian and you'll really be made welcome.
www.visit-croatia.com,k.uk/index.php/croation-for-travellers/?
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http://www.visit-croatia.co.uk/index.php/croatian-for-travellers/
Hope that link is better! We've been to Croatia 9 times and a little
Molim and Hvala goes down well!
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Just a word of caution, paying cash into your Clarity credit card account before you go ( in other words having a credit balance) is against terms and conditions, I checked with the Bank manager last year otherwise I would have done it, didn't want my card stopped when I was away.
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We don't do it before we go but as we go along on-line often the day before we draw cash. We have often had a positive balance for a few days, being doing this for years and never had a problem, we do try and avoid having a large positive balance at statement date. It's not like pre-loading a Caxton card though, if you want to buy Euros when the rate is good, for example, the Clarity card is no good.
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