Wise cards

Is she using it to purchase things or at the ATM for cash?

I only ask as the one disappointing thing is the low monthly cash withdrawal limit of £200 before they start charging their own fees as well as the Philippine ATM fees, I have a Revolut account and card which is also fee free and also has the same £200 a month limit.

But if I have to I will use my Nationwide Flexplus card in the ATM while abroad.

I did, it was less useful than I had expected, I initially had problems because I forgot that I had switched off online payments and ATM withdrawals and I was wanting to use it to load things like Grab and PayMaya however it turned out that I still cant get a fully validated PayMaya account and Grab is a lot less useful than it used to be.

The other problem is that so few places accept cards, so many food businesses are still cash like Chow King, Tokyo Tokyo, KFC and any other fast food outlet that the kids liked.

I spent in SM quite often and ACE hardware, I did manage to pay for the kids birth certificates online at psaserbilis and I bought computer stuff in Octogon managed to use it in Shakeys Pizza very nice Pizza James had a Peri Peri thing instead me and Janna had the Pizza.



I used it in Gilligans and made one large ATM withdrawal, most 7/11 stores have a BDO ATM now and the withdrawal limit for a single transaction is at least 20,000 I never tried larger than that but 20,000 per transaction works again for the first time since around 2007 yes the fee is 250 peso but not so bad if you withdraw 20,000 however for the WISE card I only withdrew 12,000 peso in order to stay below the £200 a month limit.

I did finally manage to use the card online to load my Lazada account but in the end I bought a monitor from Lazada but using the Cash on Delivery method which to be honest I think is safer for online transactions in the Philippines.

The card was useful in Schiphol and in NAIA airport but mostly I used my Nationwide Flex Direct (edit: my Flex Plus card my mistake the Flex Direct has fees the Flex plus is international rate and provides AA and travel insurance) card for cash as I had to pay Janna's school and so many other things are cash based there, I have to say it is a pain in the arse having to use cash after a couple of years of not using cash at all, I missed being able to use Google Pay by tapping my phone on a terminal and I missed contactless in general over there it is all QR Code for payments, clever but clumsy.

I still can't get a proper account like PayMaya (now Maya) or GCash I tried multiple times but the verification mechanisms are all sh*te and everything is just so hard.

Eventually got the kids bank accounts but it took four visits to Metrobank absolutely agony Still not fixed Ana's online account access but at least James has an online account now.

I found I spent more on my Nationwide Credit Card as I bought a lot of furniture online at Ikea and in general I wanted to use my credit card to delay payment as I am still in a fairly long interest free period. Almost all the furniture in the house had fallen apart over the years and I am sick to death of replacing it, but this time Ikea had opened back last November, I was one of the first customers I bought a table on the day it opened in November, well this time I bought a new couch before I arrived but the bed in the master bedroom had fallen apart as well so I replaced that too after I arrived also bought new beds for Nanay and Ate Lucia which are stackable and can turn into an extra couch and also bought a new desk for the bedroom for my computers (mostly for James but for me next time I am there too).

It's not quite that bad in Metro Manila but it is certainly not good.

About one and half to two and half grands worth of pounds, I brought £300 back with me I only converted £300 on arrival at NAIA the rest was Nationwide Card 20,000 peso each time.



I was particularly unlucky as the exchange rate was depressed for my entire trip only improving shortly before I left.