Auspost Travel Platinum MasterCard

Bought one of these Platinum Travel Mastercards from AusPost today for an upcoming trip to Bali and boy oh boy do I regret it.

• First off, they make you load minimum $100 onto the card just to purchase it. Why can’t I just pay the $7 or whatever to buy the card and load it up myself later?

They also make you provide a drivers license so it can be linked to your identity, which is kinda dumb. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a criminal or one of those anti-government, sovereign-citizen kooks, I just didn’t really want something linked directly to my identity in case I get robbed, or card gets skimmed, or I get in trouble and have to ditch it, etc..

• During purchase the lady at the counter, who didn’t speak good English, asked me for my mother’s maiden name so she could put it in for the security question. I told her the name (it’s a fairly simple Anglo-Saxon/Aussie surname) and I didn’t really think too much of it cause I assumed it was just go a verbal confirmation of identity if you ever have to call them etc, like with the bank.

WELL

I get home, go to activate the card on the app and it tells me I can’t proceed because my security info is wrong. Wonderful.

So I called the support line and after spending 5-10 mins getting past the bot and waiting on hold for another 20 mins, spoke to a guy (in another country, mind you, even though this is our national flagship postal service) who told me the lady at the post office had spelt the answer to the security question wildly different to how it actually should be. (Think “blueberry”, it’s kinda like that, two simple English words that sound exactly as they’re spelt).

Anyway, finally got that straightened out, logged in, registered the app etc…, I the tried to add the card to my Apple Wallet only to get the message “This feature isn’t supported by the card provider. Please contact them directly”.

So, despite advertising that it works with digital wallets, it actually does not.

• After going through all that effort of purchasing, setting up, etc, I then tried to convert my $100 AUD to IDR, only to discover they don’t even do Indonesian Rupiah, which was one of the only reasons I got it. Yes that’s kinda on me, I should have confirmed, but I just reasonably assumed a travel card would have more than half a dozen friggin currencies available lol.

This is the most disastrous experience I’ve had with an AusPost service to date. It’s 2026 and their “Platinum Travel Card” only covers like half a dozen currencies and their security system is like something from the 1970’s. Archaic.

I would strongly recommend AGAINST ever getting one of these. Don’t make my mistake. Get one from your bank or Wise etc.. like I wish I had done.

Feeling ripped off and like I’ve wasted my time and money and effort for the most useless thing I’ve ever bought from these guys.

I hope they do refunds cause I’ve given up on this stupid thing and will just use my regular debit card on Apple Pay and hope I don’t get robbed or skimmed or hit with international fee bullshit.