Considering a WISE card for New Zealand

My husband and I traveled to New Zealand October 2023. We had airline credit cards issued by Barclays, which don’t charge foreign transaction fees, and he had a Schwab debit card, which reimburses any international charge fees. I just looked over my credit card statements and didn’t see any additional charges.

WISE seems mostly to be a debit card, and useful if you are planning to use ATMs a lot. New Zealand is pretty much cashless, and I used my credit card even for purchases as small as a single flat white ($4NZD) We used cash for the farmer’s market, (even there, most of the vendors took cards) and once where the reader at a small gas station couldn’t read either of our cards. But many travelers get along with no cash at all.

Thank you Uala! Very reassuring as that was our plan.

More and more places but not all are adding a small percentage to the cost of items purchased with a credit card normally between 1.5-2.5%. This is to recoup the costs from the credit card company. It wouldn’t show on your credit card statement but will on your receipt. The amount charged has to be declared and is normally on the top of the terminal or displayed at the desk. This is much more common post covid. As far as I am aware there is no extra charge for debit cards. I used a wise card with no problems in Europe this year. The exchange rate was better but there were still some fees. Enjoy your trip

@Eileen, I don’t doubt you, but I’m looking at my receipts (knew there was a reason I didn’t shred that ziploc bag :-D) and not seeing any itemization of credit card charge, only GST. Maybe it’s just included on the register when you pay by cc? And they have the sign by the register to let you know? 🤷🏽‍♀️

@ula I believe you as if they charge it I use my debit card and on big items like hotel bills it has been on the receipt. You will know how much it is when you pay

Just got back from New Zealand and have some local knowledge to share.

New Zealand is unique in their Credit Card payments because they inconsistently charge a surcharge to the customer and it's difficult as a foreigner to avoid it. This must be disclosed to the customer at the register or machine and will be itemized on the credit card receipt. You'll never see it on your statements, the same way you can't see Sales Tax. However, the merchant may choose to eat the fee, like most shops in the US. This is much more rare and usually only at heavy tourist locations.

The ONLY way to avoid this surcharge is to pay in cash or get an EFTPOS network debit card by opening a local New Zealand Bank Account and ONLY insert or swipe it. Tapping, or PayWave as they call it costs extra to process and will result in a surcharge. Most other debit cards (especially American) use the Mastercard or Visa credit network which will result in a surcharge even though they are debit cards. It is possible to force the machine to process it on the EFTPOS debit network, but you'll get an "invalid transaction" error and it'll never reach the bank. It's simply impossible to avoid the fee with anything other than an EFTPOS network debit card.

If you get a Wise card in the US and use it in New Zealand you'll still be charged a surcharge because it will still be processed on the Visa/Master credit network. You simply can't avoid the fee as a foreigner without a local bank account. This card is only helpful for currency conversion after the charge hits the bank (think foreign transaction fee), which can be simplified by getting a debit card from a US bank that doesn't charge a foreign transaction fee.

You'll see inconsistent reports on the Wise card because if you apply to Wise with a New Zealand passport/ID you'll get a NZ based debit card that won't get a surcharge.

As far as ATMs go, local-only New Zealander bank-required ATMs are around, they require a New Zealand debit card to work. But you'll see stickers on it saying so, and there'll be others nearby. The fees vary from Free to $9 NZD, always decline the direct currency conversion.

Freebird, your response came as we were traveling NZ and I concur with your findings. We did not get a WISE card. Our plan of attack was to use credit cards and to withdraw $200NZ from an ATM.

We ended up not even getting cash until about 7 days into the trip. We used credit cards for everything. We are not souvenir shoppers, so most of our expenses were gas, grocery, restaurants. Almost all our lodging was paid thru booking. There was not a surcharge for gas or groceries. It seemed about half the restaurants added the cc surcharge. The few times I purchased souvenirs/post cards, there wasn't a surcharge but I'd guess I was lucky. We always inserted our cc never used tap/paywave.

We paid a fee of about $5NZ, at the ATM. I'm told some ATMs do not have fees in NZ. However, we were in a VERY small town and the fish and chips place only took cash. We actually came home with about $60NZ because places in Auckland at the end of our trip wouldn't take cash! We will likely return so no big deal.

The only issue we ran into with money in NZ was it was difficult to reimburse a host for mailing me clothes I left behind. Venmo isn't used in NZ, I didn't have WISE and neither did the host, so that was a moot point. She suggested a bank to bank transfer which apparently is a "thing" in New Zealand. However, even if we wanted to share that info, we aren't set up to do that. For lack of any other idea, I mailed the cash. It was just $10NZ so it was worth the risk. She did receive it in a couple days. Incidentally, $10NZ to courier a package from one island to another. WOW! That amounts to about $6 U.S!

Also, regarding paying for gas-- When we would insert the card at the pump, it would want a PIN. None of our cards have PINs. So the first few times I went inside and the attendant, would tell us to go ahead and pump. Finally, an attendant told use to ignore the prepay and just pump and pay inside. That worked at every gas station. I think the issue came down to needing a signature for U.S. cards. Not sure why, but it all worked fine.