[lca2018-chat] Just a couple of weeks to go!

[Brian May]

Andrew Donnellan <andrew at donnellan.id.au> writes:

> I agree with Ewen that you absolutely can get away without much cash at all
> - you might want some for smaller food outlets that prefer cash to card,
> and for splitting bills at restaurants that don't like to split for you,
> but otherwise if you're happy to cop the foreign transaction fee on your
> card you'll be able to use at least Visa/Mastercard in most places.

Be careful though.

I once got stuck after making a purchase in NZ at a kiosk without
cash. We told them beforehand that we didn't have NZD cash, and were
unsure of our ability to pay, and they said they don't take credit card,
only EFTPOS, and it would be fine. They proceeded to make the order
(icecreams) and we found we couldn't pay - our cards did not work.  I
would have preferred they get our payment first before making the order,
but they didn't - maybe we should have demanded this. Or maybe we should
have ordered something small and returnable first. Eventually we were
able to pay in AUD cash (the sales assistant had said no to AUD but the
manager fortunately noticed we had AUD and said it was fine).

Turns out (according to rumour) the EFTPOS network in NZ (as opposed
credit card transactions) is completely different and seperate from the
EFTPOS network in AU. There is no interaction between the two. Where as
my earlier research seemed to imply that they are the one an same. Would
be really good if this sort of information on how these networks work
(e.g. which network a transaction uses and what area it covers) was
published on the Internet somewhere...
-- 
Brian May <brian at linuxpenguins.xyz>
https://linuxpenguins.xyz/brian/