13 minute read
SPENDING POWER
WORDS RUTH JACKSON-KIRBY
You put plenty of thought into what to pack in your suitcase, but what about what you carry in your wallet? Here’s our guide to the best credit and debit cards to use when travelling
There are a number of charges you can face when paying with plastic abroad. Pick the right card and you can eradicate most of these, making foreign transactions much cheaper. First, consider the cost of converting your money into the local currency. Just like when you buy currency at a foreign exchange, the rate can vary between different card providers. Your provider will use an exchange rate set by Mastercard, Visa or American Express – these are all very close to the “spot” price so offer a better rate than you would get at a foreign exchange.
Of the three, Mastercard tends to offer a slightly better exchange rate than Visa or American Express but it is a small difference. For example, at the time of writing Mastercard was offering €1,103 for £1,000, compared with €1,102 from Visa.
On top of the exchange rate, many card providers – both debit and credit – charge a non-sterling transaction fee. You will pay this every time you use it, and it is typically up to 2.99 per cent of the transaction.
Then there is the non-sterling cash fee. This is a charge of about 3 per cent whenever you withdraw cash from an ATM. Also, if you take out money using a credit card you may be charged interest from the moment the notes are in your hands.
It is not uncommon to come across debit and credit cards that charge all of these fees when you use your card abroad, and that can quickly add up to an expensive transaction. Let’s say you spend £1,000 in a foreign transaction – the non-sterling transaction fee could add £29 to the cost. Withdraw £1,000 with a card that charges a non-sterling cash fee and it could mean a £30 charge. Take money out using a credit card and interest could add about 20-30 per cent to your costs.
WHICH CREDIT CARD?
The good news is that it is easy to avoid all those extra charges – all you need to do is pack the right plastic when you head overseas. If you are looking for a credit card then there are two great options to choose from. The It is not uncommon to come across debit Barclaycard Rewards card does not charge and credit cards that fees on transactions or withdrawals when you are abroad. Plus, there is no interest to charge multiple fees pay, even on cash withdrawals, as long as when you use your you pay your bill in full. It also comes with card abroad a perk – 0.25 per cent cashback on your spending. The only drawback, and it really is a small niggle, is that the Barclaycard Rewards card uses the Visa exchange rate, which is often marginally worse than the Mastercard one.
To get the Mastercard exchange rate you could go for the Santander Zero card. This charges no fees on foreign spending or withdrawing money but you will pay interest at 18.9 per cent APR on cash withdrawals. Still, pay your bill in full and you won’t be charged interest.
The added bonus of putting your overseas spending on a credit card is that your purchases are protected in case things go wrong. Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act
states that your credit card provider is jointly liable alongside a retailer when you buy something that costs between £100 and £30,000. is means you can request a refund from your credit card provider, which is especially useful for overseas purchases as it can be tricky to resolve them when the retailer is in another country.
WHICH DEBIT CARD?
e drawback of a credit card is that you’ll have to pass a credit check to have your application approved and you may need a minimum income. You also can’t predict what credit limit you will be given. is is where a debit card may be a better option – some of these don’t require a credit check and may not have minimum income requirements.
Want a top- ight debit card to take on your travels? ere are a couple of contenders. App-based Starling Bank’s current account comes with a debit card that doesn’t charge foreign exchange or cash withdrawal fees when you use it abroad. It also uses the Mastercard exchange rate and you’ll get instant noti cations on your phone of what you’ve spent in the local currency and what it has cost you in British pounds.
As a small added bonus, you’ll earn 0.05 per cent interest on your balance with Starling Bank. Plus, if your card is lost or stolen you can lock it via the app on your phone. However, the bank will perform a credit check before you can open an account.
If you don’t want the hassle of getting a new current account then Currensea is worth a look. is is a debit card that uses open banking to link to your existing current account. is means no credit checks to get a card. You can then take advantage of its fee-free cash withdrawals of up to £500 a month; there is a 2 per cent fee a er that.
Currensea uses the Mastercard exchange rate but places a 0.5 per cent fee on foreign exchange so the rate won’t be as good as with Starling Bank. You can remove the exchange rate fee by paying £25 a year for the Premium Currensea card. Premium members also pay only 1 per cent on cash withdrawals above £500 a month.
Barclaycard Rewards credit card Santander Zero credit card Starling Bank debit card Currensea debit card 0% 0.5% (0% with Premium card) Mastercard No need to open a new current account £500 monthly limit on fee-free cash withdrawals
THE BEST CARDS AT A GLANCE
Non-sterling cash fee
Non-sterling transaction fee
0% 0%
0% 0%
0% 0%
Exchange rate Perks
Visa 0.25% cashback; no interest on cash withdrawals if you pay your bill in full
Mastercard
Mastercard 0.05% interest; instant spending notifications
Pitfalls
18.9% APR interest on cash withdrawals
A novel time
We’ve all got one in us – and if lockdown doesn’t drive you to write that book, nothing will
DEREK PICOT A HOTELIER FOR MORE THAN 30 YEARS AND AUTHOR OF THE HOTEL DETECTIVE AND HIS LOVER
What a challenge it was adapting to lockdown, not least in terms of education. My children are grown up so they didn’t need any help, but I found myself on a steep learning curve because the new world order of shared duties means education starts at home. My first lesson was mastering the vacuum cleaner, of which the less said, the better. The second was how to make the bed with elastic cornered sheets that have shrunk (how was I to know that there were different temperature settings on the washing machine?). At least I didn’t need to participate in any exercise videos; vacuuming and bed changing were arduous enough.
DRAWN FROM EXPERIENCE So it was an experience in terms of both home economics and home ergonomics. And then there was the trauma of placing a grocery order online. The delivery slot I secured was so far in the future that by the time it arrived we had already been forced out to various supermarkets to track down what we needed. I knew I should have pilfered more toilet rolls from my hotel days.
So that was the first month done. I then decided to tackle a long-held ambition: writing a novel. During my time as a hotelier I encountered terrorism, five huge fires, homicides, suicides and, latterly, ecocide. These could all be included in the book, along with the time I’d had to wake the president of a country and tell him there’d been a coup and that his job title no longer matched the name of the suite he was sleeping in.
Sadly, it was all going to have to be a piece of fiction, so the names and places would have to be reinvented. I chose 1968 as the time to set the story, when the establishment found itself up against the liberal attitudes of the swinging sixties.
It was a very different age. Virtually the only roles women were appointed to in hotels were secretaries or chambermaids. The idea of anyone but a man serving you in a restaurant would have been revolutionary, and all the menus were in French. You got two weeks’ holiday, no pension plan and receptionists had to buy their own uniforms.
Most of the senior management in the top London hotels had seen war service. I worked with a general manager who had been the navigation officer of a battle cruiser, a German chief engineer who had served in U-boats and a housekeeper who had taught female secret agents to parachute out of Lysander aircraft at 500 feet over France. The kitchens were run by French chefs who turned their empires into arrondissements of the Fourth Republic, with strict Gaullist rules and no manager allowed to enter without permission.
As for the rest of the staff, the poor Brits were marginalised for a lack of language skills. The Swiss were hallowed as true hoteliers suitable for the suaveness of the reception office, while the Italians charmed the guests at the restaurant tables. If English was your only tongue, you were lucky to work in goods receiving.
DULY NOTED And the guests? In London’s luxury hotels they would be denied accommodation if they hadn’t been verified and booked by introductory letter or through an approved, credit-worthy travel agent. Cheques or travel agent vouchers were the preferred currency for payment, and records of preferences were avidly kept, along with any misdemeanours. If someone had the temerity to steal the odd coat hanger, this would be marked on their file. It is against such a backdrop that our hero, the hotel detective Richard Marker, must work alone, surrounded by this rich milieu of wealth and extravagance and yet not a part of it. Can he discover who is behind the kidnapping of the chairman’s son, and will the sensual Adelphi press officer, Sandrine, help him in his quest and perhaps appreciate his somewhat hidden charms? Answering these questions helped me through lockdown. I hope you may find them diverting as well. The Hotel Detective and His Lover is available on Amazon and Amazon Kindle
WORDS JEREMY TREDINNICK Kaohsiung
Take in the cultural sights and waterside attractions 1 THE DOME OF LIGHT Your exploration of Kaohsiung’s scenic points of interest begins in one of the city’s main metro stations. is may 2 LOTUS LAKE Jump on the Red line heading north to Zuoying Metro station (R16). Either walk down Mingtan its snaking belly, which is painted with colourful scenes of legend. Other sites worth checking out include the Chi-Ming-Tang temple, of Taiwan’s sound bizarre, but inside Formosa Road to the northern edge of Lotus an astonishing sensory feast of gold atmospheric Boulevard station, the transfer Lake, or catch a bus to the southern and red, incense smoke, booming southern port city interchange for the Red and Orange lines, the main concourse is roofed by a 660 sqm dome constructed from end, where the lake’s best-known structures are located. Next to a shady park of ancient banyan trees stand gongs and the rattle of muchused fortune sticks; and the huge, intimidating statue of Xuan Tian 4,500 individual pieces of stained the Dragon and Tiger Pagodas – a Shang-di, the Supreme Emperor of glass – one of the world’s largest little gaudy perhaps, but entering the the Dark Heaven. eng.taiwan.net.tw public art installations of its kind. Supported by huge coloured dragon’s mouth and exiting the tiger’s maw is said to bring luck, and proves 3 LOVE RIVER pillars, it was created by Italian-born great entertainment for children. A 10-minute taxi ride south (costing US artist Narcissus Quagliata and e man-made Lotus Lake has about NT$230/$8) will bring you took nearly four years to complete. been a popular destination since the to the last-mile stretch of Love River, A kaleidoscopic panorama that Qing Dynasty, and on its western which bisects the city and is its focal stretches like a vast umbrella over side are numerous pavilions and point. A decade ago, it was a polluted commuters’ heads, the dome presents temples, such as the Spring and and unsightly waterway but in the four themes – Water: the womb of Autumn Pavilions, where ponds are intervening years the river was cleaned life; Earth: prosperity and growth; lled with vibrant carp and long- up and the area underwent renovation Light: the creative spirit; and Fire: necked turtles sun themselves on tiny and greening. Today it boasts riverside destruction and rebirth – meant to stone bridges. ere’s also a statue parks and promenades, broad, treebring a message of love and tolerance. of the Goddess of Mercy riding a lined thoroughfares and a host of At the least it certainly brings a ray dragon within the complex – enter statues, co ee shops, cafés, restaurants of colourful light into the lives of all through the dragon’s fanged mouth and cultural sites, including the of those who pass under it. and negotiate the ups and downs of Kaohsiung Museum of History.
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Friendly, style-conscious youngsters mix with families, while joggers and cyclists use the bike paths. You can take a scenic gondola boat ride or hire water skis, and in the evening many bars open up, with musicians setting up along the riverside to entertain the crowds.
4 CIJIN (CHICHIN) ISLAND Jump in a taxi for the short trip west to Gushan ferry pier, then hop on a boat for the ve-minute ride (NT$30/$1 one-way) across to Cijin Island, which protects Kaohsiung Harbour from the open sea and was the earliest developed area of the city once known as Takow.
A relaxed shing hamlet, Cijin’s many points of interest are centred around its northern end and can easily be visited in a looping walk.
Close to the Cijin ferry pier is the small but atmospheric Tianhou temple, which was built in 1673 and is Kaohsiung’s oldest. Rows of pretty red lanterns create a shady “porch” area out front, while monks inside tend to the altars.
On a rugged blu near the northern tip of the island you’ll spot Taiwan’s second oldest lighthouse. Descend the steep steps from here and you’ll be treated to an unexpected sight – a series of huge cli s against which the full force of the ocean smashes, waves breaking and shooting skyward in a ferocious outburst of water-borne energy.
A man-made tunnel through the cli s will bring you to the northern end of Cijin Beach, a long, broad strand of black sand that is popular with surfers as well as families.
Facing the beach is Seafood Street (Miaoqian Street), a classic set-up of stalls selling everything from clams and mussels to squid, octopus and myriad sh. Grab some barbecued squid on a stick to snack on as you wander back to the ferry through the entertaining communal bustle. 5 BRITISH CONSULATE AT TAKOW Back on the mainland, cross the nearby bridge and walk up the hill to nish your day with a classic British a ernoon tea or a sunset drink at the perfectly positioned British Consulate at Takow. is meticulously preserved colonial building dates back to 1879 and contains historical exhibitions, a tea lounge, a verandah and gardens with fantastic views. It makes for a cultured end to your day in this surprisingly sophisticated city e consulate is open Tues-Fri 10am-7pm (from 9am on weekends); entry NT$99 ($3.50).
britishconsulate.khcc.gov.tw
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