Would be a good idea for my gym pass, will save me carrying an extra card for that. 
As long as you don’t need the card for magnetic strip only ATMs abroad…
Hico writers look expensive any cheap models you can recommend
All writers I’ve seen are extremely expensive, not sure why. I got mine for around 110£ on Amazon.
I got mine off eBay - was around £60 if I remember correctly?
I watched a video from a well respected tech outlet that went to see a “hacker” (organises Defcon hence my interest) with an NFC reader (they called it RFID) and presented the ability to read passport information and the PAN off EMV cards as a new and exciting exploit 
Looks like it was this:
It links back to this thread 