Many of us know friends or family who’ve had a dream holiday spoiled by losing important travel documents, like their passport. Perhaps you’ve even returned from an overseas adventure to find you’ve misplaced receipts or lost traveller’s cheques.

While many of us know the hassle involved with lost or stolen travel documentation, I was pretty shocked when I was reading through a Commonwealth Bank study[1] that showed just how much these missing documents are costing Aussie travellers.

Our study found that more than 2.6 million Australians have had travel documents, including receipts for gifts and souvenirs (33 per cent), passports (26 per cent) and traveller’s cheques (14 per cent), lost or stolen while overseas. On average this has resulted in a direct cost of $137 per person, that’s a total of over $360 million nationwide!

Holiday help needed!

It’s not just our wallets that are impacted – misplaced travel documentation causes disruption to our holidays. Our study found that a fifth of Aussies with lost or stolen documentation (20 per cent) have been forced to contact friends and family for emergency cash transfers.

Back-up your documents

Given we live in an increasingly virtual world, I was really surprised when I read that only seven per cent of Australians make digital copies of travel documents such as traveller’s cheques or passports, despite the fact copies can be used to obtain emergency cash and fly home.

To help out, we’ve created NetBank Vault to act as an online safety deposit box, which people can easily access to obtain copies of important documents. Customers can sign up to trial NetBank Vault, which is currently in pilot, through NetBank Labs.

Through NetBank Vault, customers about to embark on an overseas holiday can save important travel documents in their NetBank account, backed with the greatest online security. Taking the simple steps of making digital copies could mean the difference between getting home on time or being left cashless overseas.
To find out more about NetBank Vault click here.

Have you ever been stranded overseas due to lost or stolen documents? Do you have any tips for travellers about to head off overseas? We’d love to hear your advice for other travellers.

 

[1]The study was conducted by Lonergan Research amongst 1,055 Australians aged 18 years and over in capital and non-capital city areas. Fieldwork commenced on Wednesday 11 July 2012 and was completed on Friday 13 July 2012. After interviewing, data was weighted to the latest population estimates sourced from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.