One of the best credit cards for travellers is changing, so I’m ditching it

Latitude Financial has recently announced a change of fees on its Latitude 28° Global Platinum Mastercard. Starting from September 17, 2024, cardholders will incur a fee of $8 a month. The interest rate on purchases will also increase to 27.99 per cent per annum. The changes also include a sweetener, a $10 e-gift card every statement period for cardholders who spend $1000 or more on eligible transactions within the statement period.

I have been a cardholder since 2010, and it all started so well. In its previous incarnation, as the 28 Degrees Mastercard, this was a great product, prized among travellers. There were no annual fees, no reload fees and no international transaction fees. ATM withdrawals were simple just about anywhere in the world and if you preloaded the card with cash you could avoid interest charges on those withdrawals.

In 2015, the financial institution behind the card, GE, became Latitude Financial Services, the card was rebranded as the Latitude 28° Mastercard and things began to change. A processing fee of $1.95 was applied to payments to your account made via Bpay. The website was clunky. In 2023, Latitude Financial suffered a huge data spill which gave hackers 7.9 million drivers’ licence numbers, 53,000 passport numbers and 6.1 million customer records, including personal information.

For all those reasons I stopped using my Latitude 28° card more than two years ago and my immediate response to these new conditions has been to cancel my card. Judging by the outcry on web forums, plenty of others are doing the same.

This latest fee change appears calculated to hive off occasional users of the card, including the cohort who use it for overseas travel, and maintain the loyalty of those who use the card more consistently, and who might find the $10 e-gift card attractive.

I now use the Wise Travel Money debit card almost exclusively to pay for hotels, transport services goods and services and to withdraw cash from ATMs when I’m overseas. The currency conversion rates are excellent, there’s no annual or account fee, I can shuffle funds into my Wise account quickly and convert my Aussie dollars to more than 40 foreign currencies. May it never change.