Debit card acceptance for purchases in NZ and AU?

Old Jan 9th, 2007, 11:40 AM
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Debit card acceptance for purchases in NZ and AU?

On our next trip in Feb-April 2007, we are staying at many holiday cottages and apartments throughout New Zealand North Island and Australia. We are planning to do some of our own cooking and will purchase food at local grocery stores. Do Australian and New Zealand food stores accept Debit Card payment for purchases? If yes this will greatly reduce our cash requirements.

Comments appreciated,

Thanks, ZfromWinnipeg
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Old Jan 9th, 2007, 12:26 PM
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Most stores in NZ accept debit cards. However, (unless it has changed recently) they can only accept NZ debit cards as chip and pin is not yet been rolled out. So you have to enter a PIN to use a debit card.

However, all larger supermarkets accept credit card or credit card affiliated debit cards. Visa and Mastercard mainly. (Not Amex or Diners).

I am not sure what it is like where you are from but in NZ you have never been able to sign for a debit card transaction (like in the UK until recently) - it has always been PIN.

Small corner shops will accept debit but not credit card. If you hand over an overseas card they may not know whether they can use it. So for these places I suggest cash.

Hope this helps.
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Old Jan 9th, 2007, 01:34 PM
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In Canada debit card purchase requires one to enter a pin number but no signature. So I assume it works the same in AU and NZ.

Z
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Old Jan 9th, 2007, 09:25 PM
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We had no problems using our debit card in New Zealand in 2004.

Lee Ann
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Old Jan 9th, 2007, 09:53 PM
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Do you think the bank will charge additional fees when you pay for a purchase with your debit card like they are planning to if you have to withdrawl from an ATM. My bank is going to charge me $6.00 for every ATM withdrawl (so I am not planning on doing many!)
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Old Jan 10th, 2007, 12:45 AM
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I mostly used my credit card in stores, The few times I used a US debit card (with Visa) logo to make a purchase at a store, I did not get charged the ATM fee. Only when I used it at a Bank ATM machine. I was not able to get cash back at a store, however. Not sure about the Canadian details though.

I could use a credit card almost everywhere, but I needed cash for some small hostels and things like farmers markets and smaller golf courses. I could always use a credit card at a grocery store. The other thing to be aware of is that if you are in a tiny little town, there may not be an ATM machine, so I tried to keep about $100NZ always on hand.
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Old Jan 19th, 2007, 01:58 PM
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Ditto most of the pp. In December, for both AU and NZ, we were able to use credit cards in stores, but not our U.S. debit card. It only worked for ATMs.

$6 for each ATM transaction?! Yeesh. Our credit union charged $1. I switched banks to avoid that kind of overcharging.
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Old Jan 19th, 2007, 05:07 PM
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We just returned from our trip to Australia from Canada. Our debit cards did not work at some stores, so I stopped trying. We used Visa and took out cash for all our purchases. You can purchase groceries with your visa. Have a wonderful trip!
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Old Jan 19th, 2007, 07:05 PM
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Thanks for the comments, ZfromWinnipeg
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Old Jun 30th, 2007, 04:09 PM
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Hi Z,
I was reading your post about 61" luggage for a trip aboard Qantas to Australia. I was wondering how you made out. My daughter is traveling there & the suitcase I have measures 55" (1 inch over the limit) I'm a little stressed. I don't know if they measure. I don't want the kid to end up paying $125 for exceeding limits. Do they measure? or just eyeball the luggage? What is your expererience? I appreciate your response.
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Old Jun 30th, 2007, 10:17 PM
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In Australia debit cards (in shops it's called using EFTPOS) have a four digit PIN. In bigger stores you can often get cash out at the same time you make a purchase.

I'm not sure about whether Canadian ones will work here, but my debit card (with 4 digits) worked in Canadian ATMs.

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Old Jul 1st, 2007, 07:32 AM
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Hello ZfromWinnipeg:

Today's news has a report from Vancouver of Debit Card fraud where fake readers were switched at retail outlets, switched back a few days later after many pin and bank account numbers had been recorded.

Four were arrested and one of those four is at large after giving a fake name, no doubt collecting some cash to either get away or pay their lawyer.

Personally, I do not like any type of electronic money handling.

When we travel, we use an ATM with a bank where we have absolutely no other connecting accounts.

We deposit what we expect to need and withdraw the limit as we need. We try to do these withdrawls inside a bank or as safe a location as we can find. We seldome use credit cards, no debit cards. Our risk is limited what is in our ATM account and money can not be moved by the bank from one account to another as this ATM account is not where we otherwise deal.

We use cash unless we must place a deposit for auto rental and so on.

We do not even give a credit card number on the net. I would rather pay the long distance cost and provide a credit card number [guarantee only] by telephone.

Anal? Well I guess but [fingers crossed] we have not YET been stung.

New Zealand is about the safest country that I can think of so why worry? Well, what better place for a con artist to operate than a safe country where most of the people as so trusting?

As smart as we all think that we are, the fraudsters can turn out to be a lot smarter.

Stay safe and save those minimal costs some other way.

Woodie
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Old Jul 1st, 2007, 12:51 PM
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I am supposing you are from Canada from your username so I don't know whether this advice will be possible..but worth checking out. This was our experience on a trip in August of 2006.

Bank of America is a partner of Westpac, which is one of the biggest and most widely distributed banks in Australia. If you use a BOA debit card at Westpac ATMs there is NO fee at all. And Westpac branches are literally all over Australia, even in the most out of the way places.

You can take out US$300 per day. We did not want to accumulate fees which would happen with all credit card transactions. When we had a big bill to pay, say for a week of lodging, we'd go to the ATM several days in a row and then give the money straight away to the hotel so we didn't have to carry it around.

We had no problems and were able to easily monitor the account as we had set it up especially for the trip. We put a big chunk of money in the account before we left and with each ATM receipt you can see how much you have left. The amount does fluctuate a bit as the exchange rate changes daily but it is easy to keep on top of your money this way.

And when we got home we had no surprise fees waiting for us. If you don't have a BOA available, check out other partners with Westpac.
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Old Jul 5th, 2007, 12:47 PM
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For the information of any others reading this post, Lyn is quite right. Bank of America has an alliance with Westpac in Australia and NZ. The Canadian alliance is with Bank of NOva Scotia.

We opened an account with Bank of Nova Scotia before leaving for our trip.. we used the Westpac ATM's everywhere without a problem and without any fees.
Definately worth it to save the cost of fees.
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