This post is the first in a series bought to you by
Aussie’s new low rate Platinum MasterCard. They asked me to share a few travel
& shopping stories. The new platinum card offers a low rate, low annual fees,
no international transaction fees on purchases, extended warranty insurance and
complimentary international travel insurance.
The year was 2004. It was winter. To
celebrate the fact that we had managed to stay relatively sane while raising Baby
Harry thus far, we packed up some bags and treated ourselves
to a holiday in Bali, where the weather was warm and the babysitting services
were extremely well priced.
Oh what a wonderful break it was!
 |
| Harry and Made. I loved her. And him as well, of course..... |
One day Mr. Woog, Harry and myself made the
trek into nearby Kuta to hunt down some more nappies. As we had been spending
most of our time at the resort, we had been putting everything on our account
and had no actual cash.
Travelling using a credit card is by far the easiest way to get around, so an
ATM was located and some rupiah was dispensed at about the exact same time that
Harry had a massive screaming hissy fit to be fed IMMEDIATELY.
We walked down a few streets until we found a nice looking cafe. Harry was fed. Screaming ceased.
All was right in the world.
We were about to pay
the bill when a friendly looking man approached us and sat down at out table. Balinese are fully friendly like that.
Until.....
From his pocket, he pulled out Mr. Woog’s
ATM card. It would seem in the confusion of Harry cracking it, closely followed by myself, that it was left in
the ATM machine.
Things
were about to get interesting.
The smiley man demanded a lot of money for the
return of the card. Mr. Woog started negotiations.
Things were going back and
forth and back and forth until I got really bored and pissed off and tired with a wriggly baby in my arms, so in a move
similar to a striking cobra, I snatched that card out of the thief’s hand and
wagged my other finger at him, telling him that his mother would be ashamed of
him right now.
And that is how you deal with a
blackmailer. Like a cobra.
Last year I went to New York, leaving the
clan behind me.
*fist pump*
Mr. Woog gave me an envelope containing American Dollars, instructing me to only use this and not to use the credit
card.
He
is frightened of the fees.
Because I am not 12 and not an employee of
his, or some sort of subservient Sheila, I told him that it was a ridiculous
idea. And there was some mention of jamming it....
But in the end I split up that cash. Some
in this bag, some in that bag, some in my makeup bag and some in BabyMac’s bag and a couple of bucks in my bra...
I would go
and make a daily withdrawal from one of any given bags or bra each morning, thinking
that THAT was my daily budget. And then I would go out for the day.
Have
I mentioned how good the shopping is in New York?
Every day I would run out of cash and
because I could not be bothered to trek back to the Bag ATM and the bra would be telling me that there were insufficient funds, I would whack that
shopping on the credit card paying for not only the item that I so desperately
needed, but also being stung by that international transaction fee that went
along with it.
By the end of the trip, the whole “cash only” experiment
ended up costing a lot more, thanks to the fees on that card.
On my return and a few days later, that bank
statement arrived.
Mr. Woog took himself off into the bedroom for a quiet weep
while I showed mates my new treasures. The only winners were me,
the US Economy.... and my bank.
He has since come to realize that a card
would be preferable to use in future trips.
This post was bought to you by Aussie’s new low rate Platinum MasterCard, a product designed specifically for those
of us who enjoy a little overseas travel or like to buy online from foreign
retail sites. It includes benefits for travellers like
no international transaction fees on purchases and complimentary international
travel insurance.
It is a low rate, low annual fee option with NO INTERNATIONAL TRANSACTION FEES on
purchases, which means you could spend more! Which means you can buy that extra
pair of shoes.
Which makes me happy!
Check out aussie.com.au for more details or visit Aussie on Facebook, Twitter or Google+
Been anywhere exotic lately?
Buy anything good?
Buy anything good?
 |
| the snakeskin pants from NYC.... |
