I've been using my CoinJar Swipe card more often lately to take advantage of the higher bitcoin price. It has the downside of being EFTPOS only, so it is no good for online orders, but it isn't hit with the 3% foreign exchange fee that all the Visa and Mastercard debit cards seem to have.
If you fund it with bitcoin, there is not the usual 1% fee, so you are left with just the buy/sell spread, which seems to be about 1%, as your only cost, once you have purchased the card. I have observed though, that the Coin Jar bitcoin exchange rate tends to be higher than those of foreign exchanges, which is good for loading the card and spending bitcoin.
There is also a feature to automatically keep the card loaded with a set amount and it will sell your bitcoin balance when you make a transaction to keep your card topped up. I find this a very handy feature: I can know that I have a certain amount on my card but I can keep the majority of my funds denominated in bitcoin so I still benefit from any increases in the bitcoin exchange rate.
Good points.. thanks for sharing those tips. Mine should arrive soon and I will be able to take it out for a spin!