mami48

Is it more advisable to bring travelors cheques or get money a little bit at a time? We will be spending twelve days going from Niagara to Toronto and hope to ferry back to Rochester. How much would be reasonable for two adults and a child for admissions, meals, sourvenirs, etc? We're not much into shopping. We may get T-hirts and jewelery that's about it. The hotels will provide breakfast. Niagara tickets I should be able to get on the American side. Any suggestions would be appreciated. BAK, are you out there?

Syv

Travellers cheques or cash. Either is fine. The exchange rate has been staying in the same range all summer. Probably easier to exchange at your own bank before coming across -- less fees.

Figure on meals, souvenirs, costing pretty much "the same" as in USA, only in Canadian funds. In other words, if McDonalds lists a meal at $5.99 US funds. It would be $5.99 Canadian as well.
At higher end sit-down restaurants, it is usually pretty similar to US prices. Sometimes a bit more in Canadian funds which works out to the same as it would have been back home. For example $15.00 meal US funds, might be $18-$20 Canadian funds.

BAK

I think the easiest way to get Canadian money for Americans is to just use the automated teller bank machines.

There are two types. "Real bank" bank machines have lower fees than what are called "white label" machines. the ral ones belong to Royal Bank / RBC; TD Canada Trust (green); CIBC, which are sort of maroon; Bank of Montreal / BMO, mostly blue, and red Scotiabank.

Other machines are usually owned by store, bar, and restaurant owners, and charge more.

Look for a Cirrus or Plus symbol on your bank card, and the same symbol on the bank machine.

Visa and Mastercard are extremely common; American Express is at most good restaurants and hotels; Discover and Diners Club are rare.

Admissions vary widely. I think the Maid of the Mist is a real bargain, although I can't remember theexact price. Canada's Wonderland is expensive. Toronto Zoo is expensive, Centreville on Toronto Island is reasonable...

Best high quality, low priced sit down meals are at Swiss Chalet; your can eat ther for $30 all included (no booze) for dinner.

BAK

GaryA

I'm with BAK. Just make sure you have the cash in your bank and then take out what you'll need each day - so long as you're using an ATM that doesn't charge a couple of bucks each time you use it.

Credit cards will charge you about the same exchange as the ATM's. Debit cards are quite popular in Canada but not as much in the states but are an even better way of making sure you only specnd what you have.

Travelors cheques are a real ripoff and because of ATM's finally are going the way of the dinasaurs. If people only realized that they are actually loaning the Travelor Cheque company money that the company can use interest free and on top of that the companies have the chutzpah to sometimes charge people for getting them they would be as angry as I was when I finally figured it out.

bob_brown

I go to Canada frequently, and from experience, you will pay a fee to cash a traveler's check. I have not used one in about 10 years.

I use my ATM card at a real bank for the best dea. I have a checking account with the Bank of America and Scotia Bank is an affilitate. Last year, my Scotia Bank withdrawals were treated as "on net." Perhaps your bank has an affiliate in Canada.

One thing about the ATM, you can withdraw day or night.

Don't expect restaurants to take US dollar denominated checks. If they do, you will get your change in Canadian currency, and usually at a poor rate of exchange.

Beware the non bank ATMs. They do charge a fee, and often they accept only Cirrus cards or only Plus cards.

Patrick

Regarding bank ATM's, I didn't realize until I got there that Canadian SCOTIA banks are the same as Bank of America. In fact if you bring up the SCOTIA website to find their ATM locations, their website even says Bank of America.

By the way, my ATM withdrawals cost me absolutely nothing, but my Citibank charges all cost 3% for foreign transaction fees. Both the ATM and Citibank used the same exact exchange rate as a base. So I saved 3% whenever I paid cash rather than charging.

laverendrye

Just for the record, the Bank of Nova Scotia (Scotiabank) and the Bank of America are two different and independent banks, neither of which has retail operations in the other country. They are both members of a global ATM alliance, including other banks such as Barclays, BNP Paribas and Deutsche Bank, which means that as others have noted, the International ATM fee is waived for alliance customers using their ATMs.

I don't know if the other major Canadian Banks (RBC, TD, CIBC, and Bank of Montreal) have similar alliances with foreign banks, but it would be worth checking.

Patrick

I apologize for my misunderstanding about Scotia and Bank of America. When I googled BofA for ATMs in Canada, I got a BofA page that listed Scotia's ATMs. The actual page seemed to indicate that Scotia and Bank of America were one and the same. It's funny because when I do the same for ATMs in other countries, I get those partner bank listings, but no joint header like I did with BofA and Scotia.

tdelony

Actually, B of A and Scotia bank have a partnership where there is no fee for B of A customers to use Scotia ATMs. As a B of A customer, I recently did this and I can attest that there was no fee. However, I do not know if there would have been a fee if I had gone to an ATM other than Scotia.