Have a look at BankWest. They have no foreign transaction fees, free ATM withdrawals (excluding ATM operator fees) and importantly, no minimum deposit or use requirements to activate these benefits. With ING, you need to jump certain hurdles to get the foreign use benefits.
Macquarie may have the same benefits as BankWest, double check this because then you don’t need to open a new account.
I also have a credit card just in case and I use it for any hotel or car rental security deposits that get refunded - look at Latitude 28 Degrees.
wscholermann@aussie.zone 2 weeks ago
In reality you should take two cards on your trip just in case you lose one, or one doesn’t work.
For me I used my ING card, which provides 100% full fee rebate on the first 5 eligible fee incurring ATM withdrawal transactions made on the account in that month (excludes International ATM operator fees).
My second card was a wise card. You can load the currency you want on the card and use wise set exchange rate, which is very reasonable. In terms of fees, each calendar month you have a free withdrawal allowance (varies by currency and country) — you can withdraw money up to that amount without any variable fees .
A variable fee changes based on how much you withdraw (and the country). For example, if your card was issued in the EEA, your card has a 1.75% variable fee. If you withdraw 100 EUR, then the variable fee would be 1.75 EUR.
Wise charge the variable fee for every withdrawal on your Wise card over your monthly allowance, regardless of how many times you made a withdrawal that month.
In all cases, often the biggest fee is the foreign atm charging like a wounded bull that your financial institution has no control over (I’m looking at you Thailand and your 7 dollar withdrawal fees).
Something else to be aware of is Aussie banks rejecting foreign transactions. Recently overseas I tried to pay for a hotel with an ING card and ING kept rejecting the payment despite me telling them I was overseas. In this scenario I used my Wise Card instead and all was good, so just be aware that Australian Banks in general can be really annoying when you are overseas.