Anyone else find euro traveler’s checks useful and ATM fees in Europe exorbitant?
 

Last year I took euro traveler’s checks to Spain and France, and it worked out fine for me. I got them through Citibank before I left. And I’m doing it again in a month when I head to Rome. The two times I used an ATM for cash — both times in Paris — I got pummeled by the fees, which I discovered when I got home and saw my credit card bill. I remember taking out the equivalent of $150 in the Marais and getting hit with a $12 fee. Is this usual? Was I doing something wrong?

Yes, you were definitely doing something wrong. By using your credit cart to get Euro from a cash machine you were taking out a cash advance against your credit card. This is essentially the same thing as taking out a loan from your credit card co.

You should use an atm or debit card linked to your checking account. When you use it you are withdrawing money directly from your US checking account, not borrowing money from the cc.

European atms (those run by banks) do not charge withdrawl fees. Many US banks charge you a fee to use a foreign atm (ranges from $1.50 to a few $). Many US credit unions will not charge a fee. Even with a few $ fee you will get more Euro for your $ using an ATM than you will with a travellers check.

Hi W,

>I remember taking out the equivalent of $150 in the Marais and getting hit with a $12 fee.<

That's very high.

Even American Express charges only $5 per withdrawl and a 2% exchange fee.

My local bank charges $0.75 and the 1% Visa/MC fee.

To find out how much your TCs are costing you, check the daily bank exchange rate and compare that to the cost of buying the TCs and the cost of cashing them.

((I))

PS,

As J62 said, you should use an ATM card in an ATM machine, not a credit card.

((I))

<i>p.p.s.</i> Do not use &quot;standalone&quot; ATMs - always get your cash from the one on the front of a bank, for two reasons:

If anything goes wrong and your card is eaten, you can go inside and get help.

Independent ATMs charge exorbitant fees that banks don't.

Make sure that bank is OPEN in case you DO need help or its academic.

When people refer to using ATM machines, we are talking about using an ATM debit card from our checking account, not a credit card (which makes it a cash advance). As noted also you want a real bank ATM machine not a kiosk type like you might find in a store.

&quot;As noted also you want a real bank ATM machine not a kiosk type like you might find in a store.&quot;

Why? Those &quot;kiosk type&quot; ones are also real bank ATMs.

Often they impose a fee. They say so when you go to use them.

Some, in fact many kiosk type atms are affiliated with banks. I use those that are in airports, street corners, hotel lobbies, etc without reservation. I don't particulary need to find one right next to an open bank branch as those are becoming less and less common in Europe as in the US.

The ones I avoid are those that are not from a bank, i.e. the kind you'd find in a 7-11 store in the US. Privately owned, but linked to the plus, cirrus, etc network.

&quot;Often they impose a fee.&quot;

Not in Europe, or at least not in EU-countries. It would be illegal.

The other point you make about buying TCs in euros before you go is the one I want to address.
The last time I checked at my bank I could buy them at &quot;no charge&quot;. Wonderful, right? No, there may be no &quot;charge&quot; as such, but the exchange rate was approximately 3.5% above the current exchange rate -- the rate I would have been getting for an ATM withdrawal in Europe.
Let's see, 3.5% on $2000 worth of TC's? That's $70 they would cost me. More than any charges any bank I'd ever consider would charge me for a few ATM withdrawals! Then IF places in Europe charged a fee for cashing the TCs (as they often do) that's even more cost.

So, instead just buy the TCs in US dollars which truly will not cost you anything at all to buy? But then you are at the mercy of whatever rate the place in Europe wants to give you to exchange those into euros -- probably a lot more than the 3.5% I talked about before. TC's are a no win situation, except as something you get a few of and never use unless you have an extreme emergency.

Sorry, wanderful, you made some rookie mistakes and that's why you lost money. No savvy traveler uses TC's anymore, and unless it's an absolute emergency, do not ever use a credit card in an ATM machine!!

First of all, use your debit or ATM card to get all of your cash. If you want to take TC's as a back-up in case of an emergency, that's fine, but get them in US$ because you will most likely bring them all home. By having US$ TC's you can just deposit them into your bank with no exchage fees.

Please take our advice and you'll save a lot of money next time.

I usually have some TCs for backup, as I get them free from AAA, but I never take them in euro. That makes them more expensive due to the exchange rate they charge when you buy them that way -- and they charge to cash them even if in euro.

I don't use them for my primary source of cash, anymore, but from what I've read on here, I think Italy may be one of the countries where TCs are especially expensive to use. I don't know -- they are reasonable in France and CR, but I still wouldn't take them in euro, no point.

Really, as others said, the problem is that you are using your credit card to get cash, rather than your bank ATM/debit card. That isn't your money -- so it is just like a loan and you are charged a lot for it.

I will be even more blunt. If you used your credit card for cash advances, then you got what you deserved. If you buy euro denominated travelers' checks, you are paying about 4% more for them than yuo need to pay for euro notes out of an ATM.

Some major US banks have affilicates in Europe. Bank of America and Barclays Bank have an agreement. Last year in the UK, I used Barclays ATMs and paid nothing extra. It was virtually like a transaction at home.

Most European aTMs don't charge a fee. Any costs you accrue are from your home bank and for the transaction fee imposed by Visa or Master Card. That fee is usually 1%.

Information is valuable! Every day currency exchange gets less costly and easier. ATMs are 'magic'. They read your card, check its validity, check its status/balance and then give you an exact amount of money. All in 2/3 minutes. Twenty years ago, you visited your bank and bought TCs. Later you found an open bank somewhere, signed the TCs and got local money. If you don't want to deal with such services, use USA dollars. They can be converted to local currency everywhere. Your only cost will be the spread.

Christina, are you sure your AAA cheques are free? When I was with them (gold card) they were getting about 9% markup IIRC. How much does a 1000&euro; cost today, all costs in?

Robes, Christina said she never takes them in &euro;.

Maybe I misheard what the agent said to me when I looked into AAA cheques several years ago, but I <u>thought</u> she said that 9% was just for buying dollar-denominated ones. It didn't make sense to me at the time, but it sounded like too much for either USD <i>or</i> EUR cheques, so I passed. I didn't ask about any particular currency.

Actually AAA will sell members AMEX TCs at face value if they are in US dollars. There is no charge, except if you use a credit card they will charge you as if it were a cash advance.

The problem then, of course, becomes the fees that someone may charge you in Europe and the often outrageous exhange rates they will give you for the currency exchange.

As I said on the other thread on this topic, whether you get TCs in euro or dollars, it's a no win situation.

At least if you take some US ones as emergency backup and don't use them, you can deposit them or cash them when you get home and they truly haven't cost you anything at all.

Keep in mind that European banks will charge exorbitant fees for cashing traveler's checks (in Austria, for example, several years ago it was the equivalent of $8 per check). Then there is a poor exchange rate to consider. For that reason, I don't bother with them. And I'm not sure that all banks even handle them any longer.

As a back-up, I would personally use my credit card for a cash advance (3% cash advance fee plus 3% currency conversion fee). Then, I would go on-line and pay it off right away.

Of course, the best thing is an ATM or debit card, preferably from a low or no-fee credit union.

YOu definitely misheard them Robespierre, or they gave you confusing information, as there was never and still is not any charge whatsover to get travelers checks from AAA in USD if you are a member (assuming you are in the US, of course, if there is such a thing as AAA in Europe, they could charge you 9 pct to get them in USD which would then be a foreign currency over there).

I've gotten them many times over the years (including last year) and have never paid a penny to get them in USD. I think the markup for euro isn't quite 9 pct, but is pretty close - it is 7 to 9 pct, I do know that, which is why there is no point to doing it. It may have been 9 pct some time ago. They don't use American Express anymore, though, they use VISA for their travelers checks.

As someone said (Neapolitan?), you do pay a fee if you charge them on a credit card because they are money so it's like a cash advance, but that fee would go to your credit card.

Christina your comment about AAA using Visa rather than AMEX nowadays in interesting. I recently did buy a couple TCs from them but bought them in pounds to send for an apartment deposit. They were AMEX TC's. Maybe Visa doesn't do them in pounds? That seems surprising. And our local AAA makes a big deal about working with American Express so that seemed surprising. Not disputing you, just suprised.

and on top of everything else - my local AAA offices no longer handle travelers checks at all. One has to order them by phone or on-line. Used to be so easy - just walk into the local office and buy US$ TC for face value.

But TCs really aren't needed in this day and age.

That is very interesting, Neapolitan, I wonder what that is all about.

So, I called my AAA office and they told me that whether they are Visa or AAA varies by geographic location and the particular &quot;club&quot;, that AAA doesn't have a national system on that. That sure surprised me. Actually, I liked American Express and wished they had kept them, but Visa is a wellknown name so I suppose it doesn't really matter.

Today, my club's (mid-Atlantic) rate is $1.30 per euro with a bank rate of 1.2143, so that is a 7 pct markup. The clerk really didn't know what she was talking about, so I had to help here though -- at first, she claimed it cost $1.92 per euro to get them in euro. I nearly fell on the floor and told her that was impossible since the current rate was around $1.20. So, she checked again and couldn't figure it out so told me it would cost $65 to buy 50 euro of TCs, and I did the math.

Now that I read it over, I am thinking my Robespierre was talking about what American Express was going to charge him for TCs, not AAA, and that could be true. I've never heard of a gold AAA account. It is possible the exchange rate varies by locale, also, I bet, but I can't believe they would change the major AAA benefit of free USD TCs anywhere.

excuse me.. that was a typo, I didn't mean to call him &quot;my Robespierre&quot; which would be a bit presumptuous.. hee hee I bet that freaked him out.

I called AAA to ask about TCs. AAA has two tiers of service: Classic and Plus. The latter, which I had, includes numerous additional benefits, including free passport pictures and higher payouts for towing and locksmiths:

http://www.aaahartford.com/i/members...ership-med.jpg

I asked the agent what fees were involved, and she said 9%. Since I didn't mention any foreign currency, I assumed she meant that was what they charged for USD, and I thanked her and hung up.

We took traveler's checks the first time we went to London. I think I got them in Pounds Sterling, but can't recall. We had trouble using them. Some of the smaller merchants didn't want them. A few didn't take CC either, but that's changed.

Over the years, after dozens of overseas trips, we find the following is a good rule of thumb: Use your debit card for cash withdrawals and your credit card for purchases. Change some money anywhere where the posted rate looks reasonable.

You will pay a fee for cash withdrawals, exchange rate, foreign country fees on your credit card, etc. That's the cost of traveling outside the US. All in all, if you spend $ 10,000 on your CC outside the US, you may pay $ 300 in fees. If you can afford to spend $ 10,000, a $ 300 fee for the convenience of using a CC isn't a big deal.

I know there are some CC, such as Capital One, who claim not to charge a &quot;foreign country fee.&quot; I personally feel that in some way, either in the exchange rate, in the annual fee for the card, etc., they are profiting from the transaction. However, a profit is a reasonable expectation if you are in the business of making life convenient for customers.

Christina, that is so funny about the clerk not knowing the current rate. I'm sure that figure of $1.92 was for pounds not euro, but I doubt that the clerk has a clue that the UK has a different currency from euro. In fact I'm sure if you said to that clerk you wanted 100 pounds of TC's, she'd tell you that they really don't weigh that much.

shorebrau - I don't think it matters how much the vacation costs, or how much I can afford. If I don't have to leave $300 on the table, I won't do it. A friend of mine is a multi-millionaire. He books his travel with lastminutedeals.com, and he will tell you that the reason he can afford things is because he doesn't throw money away.

I pay 0% for debit card purchases, and $1 for cash withdrawals. There is no annual fee for the card, and they make their money on the discount points the merchant pays.

You can look at the daily exchange rate yourself and see how much markup you paid. The calculator is at http://www.xe.com/ccc

along these same lines ... can someone clarify ATM fees for me? For example, if Wells Fargo charges $5/transaction, does Visa charge 1% (or more?) in addition to that? Or if my other bank says they charge 3%, is that just the standard Visa charge and no additional bank fee? I'm wondering if it's worth opening a checking account at a local credit union just to save in ATM fees ... do you get charged a Visa/MC fee for those?

Jaclyn, there is no standard ATM fee, you'll have to ask your bank what they charge to know. My bank doesn't charge me anything for a foreign withdrawal, and I don't have any percentage charge, either. Visa doesn't charge me anything but I don't have a Visa logo on my card -- although I think the bank may use Visa networks.

Neapolitan, yeah, after thinking about it, I realized the $1.92 probably was for pounds, even though I specifically asked her what the rate was for euro TCs.

jaclynpoulson,

I am not aware that Visa charges anything for ATM withdrawals on a debit card. I am not sure that Visa is even involved. What does annoy me is when U.S. banks charge a fee for a foreign credit card transaction when they get the bill in U.S. dollars, Visa already converted the charge from the local currency to dollars.

sounds like bottom line:

-use atms for cash withdrawal in the local currency.
-use capitol one credit card for purchases.
-get travelers checks in dollars only for emergency backup for those who wish it.

Since this thread is over 3 years old I'd be wary of most of
the info - or at least double-check it.

The general information is still correct, but it does not hurt to check.

I did call Capitol one this morning; I got their card just to use for international travel. They do not charge extra for overseas purchases.

I guess what I don't understand is why would anyone purchase TA's. I did back in the 70's, but cannot fathom why one would now.

> Anyone else find euro traveler’s checks useful and ATM fees in Europe exorbitant? <

No.

((I))

use ATM for best exchange rate.
Travelers checks are a thing of the past.