Surprises are often a pleasant part of travel but a more unpleasant and costly one may await on the return home.

Consumers seem to be losing out when it comes to spending overseas despite the buoyant Australian dollar, a study finds.

Some 36 per cent of Australians seriously overspend on holiday and 21 per cent run out of funds mid-trip ,the Holiday Money Misery Survey, conducted by online finance comparison service Mozo, finds.

Furthermore, 24 per cent of those surveyed take more than six months to pay off a holiday credit card debt.

Mozo managing director Rohan Gamble said travellers often don’t consider the extra charges they might incur overseas.

Mr Gamble warned that spending blowouts could be much more serious than expected and could set travellers back thousands of dollars in debt.

“If you go overseas and just use your credit card, you can rack up literally hundreds of dollars of fees,” he said.

Mr Gamble said that about the Australian traveller spent, on average, about $5000 on holiday overseas and the difference between using the right product and not was worth about $300 for each trip.

“It’s good that the Australian dollar is good enough to allow us to get overseas, but you don’t want to undo all the good work by paying too much in fees.”

He said a lot of it comes down to doing a bit of research before you go.

“We spend a lot of time researching parts of our trip with hotels and flights, trying to save as much money as we can.

“But it’s amazing to us how little time people spend researching the costs of spending money when they travel, Mr Gamble said.

“Things like how are you going to get money when you’re over there? Are you going to use a prepaid card or a debit card or a credit card?

“That’s a pretty critical decision, which could cost hundreds of dollars.”

Mr Gamble said banks should definitely make this information more transparent but travellers should also plan for the charges they might encounter.

“There are a lot of things which are more expensive overseas, like global roaming on mobile phones and exchange fees,” he said.

“One thing that amazed us was the significant percentage of people who didn’t know you get charged commission on foreign exchange.

“Upfront planning is useful when you travel, but also upfront budgeting and being realistic with yourself about how much money you do have to spend.”

Choice media manager Ingrid Just said extra charges for ATM transactions and mobile phone usage were a major source of overspending.

“Often the reality of what you’ve spent only hits when you get home,” she said.

“Now we have technology that we can use anywhere in the world, as well as flexible cash withdrawal systems. It’s become a lot more convenient to use some of these services.

“The downside is that we’re using them without understanding the true fees and charges are.”

Combating the problem could simply be a matter of looking into other ways of accessing cash, Ms Just said.

“People should have a financial checklist and look at the options and alternatives to using an ATM machine over there,” she said.

“They could access their funds through a travel card or travel account, which a number of banks do.

“It’s also advisable to contact your phone or internet provider to find out what the roaming costs are and set up alerts so you can receive messages telling you what your spend level is at for that particular month on your phone.”