We’re in Mexico at the moment and I have thoughts on spending Australian money abroad. Four years ago today I became an Up Bank customer, and it’s one of the best things I’ve done.

The original sell was that if you had an Up debit Mastercard you could turn up at an international ATM or EFTPOS machine and swipe away without getting dodgy international fees. The payment would be made at the current rate, nothing dodgy or stupid. They lived up to that promise, and they still do today. Britt and I have moved all of our personal banking to Up and love everything about the bank, the app, the debit Mastercards, everything.

If you’re travelling overseas soon I could not recommend Up more. I started as an Up customer for international travel only, and after using the app more and more we became full-time customers.

The only thing Up couldn’t do inside itself was to purchase an international currency and spend that currency overseas. You might want to do this if you are travelling somewhere for a longer period of time than the week or two a holiday might be, like us moving to Mexico. (Side note: Up does have a current partnership with Wise, and I understand it’s just an easier way to transfer money to Wise.)

It looked like the Australian dollar would be going down on the Mexican peso over the next few months so I wanted to hedge against this and purchase some pesos. I have already used Wise (formerly Transferwise) for many international payments for our business, but hadn’t used the issued debit cards or used the international currency bank account feature yet.

Qantas had also launched a “business-grade” version of its Qantas Travel Money product called Qantas Business Money and they had big Qantas points offer available recently, so I took the opportunity to use both products. I moved a considerable amount of Australian Dollars to Qantas Business Money to help us purchase a car here, and then moved a similar amount to Wise for spending money. Qantas Business Money is a Qantas service provided by Airwallex, a Melbourne company with a handful of offices worldwide.

A few points on the three different travel money products.

Which banking products should you use?

Finally, you’re welcome to Google the products and do your own research, you really should, but if you sign up for Up using this link you get $5. If you sign up for Wise using this link you get a fee-free transfer of up to 500GBP and they pay me $90 for every three of you that signs up and transfers $300.