Converting to Euros
 

I am staying at B&B's in the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway. They all insist on cash (no travelers checks). Can I rely on ATM's to come up with the money? Will need Euros and possibly Norweigen Krone.

You will find ATMs everywhere. If you will be needing a lot of cash and if you have a low daily withdrawal limit, you might want to ask your bank to temporarily raise it.

Both Denmark and Norway do not use the euro. I was in these countries in 2003 and I never had trouble finding ATMs.

Hi ambrose,

You could also bring TC's, either in dollars or in local currency, and cash them at a bank.

((I))

Ira offers a good suggestion, but only if you don't mind losing anywhere from 4 to 10% or even more on each transaction whether it is from buying the TC's in a foreign currency, or paying fees to cash them, or relying on exhorbitant exchange rates to cash them.

I'd opt for the ATM route.

I would not bother with TC's..waste of time and money IMO when there are ATMs everywhere.

You may need to experiment to find out the max you can withdraw from an ATM machine at any one time. In Italy, the ATM machine we used had a max limit of 250 euro per withdrawal. Like you, we needed lots of cash. I initially tried to withdraw 500E but was rejected but the machine did not tell me why. A couple more futile attempts and I almost gave us, thinking my card just wouldn't work there. Fortunately, I tried a smaller amount and was successful. Then, to minimize the transaction fee, I played around to see what the max I could withdraw. The transaction fee turned out to be $1.50 per withdrawal.

You might want to call your bank before leaving for a couple of reasons. First, as already mentioned, you may need to have your your daily withdrawal amount temporarily increased. Second, you may need to be careful about withdrawing on the weekends. My bank reminded me that they counted Friday 2:00pm (US time) until Monday 2:00pm (US time) as one day for ATM withdrawal purposes. You might ask yours about that. Third, the bank put a marker on my account indicating that I'd be making siginificant withdrawals so that a fraud detector or some other bank employee wouldn't freeze or close the account while I was away due to "irregular activity".

Dave

dcd, that's an interesting point about weekend withdrawls. It was a long time ago that I worked in banking, but as I recall, any transactions made over the weekend were indeed posted to Monday's business. I will call my bank and ask if that applies to ATM withdrawls. Also it never hurts to have an account at a second bank so you will have a back-up ATM card in case one gets lost, stolen, mutilated, or munched.

Hi

just worth checking :

Some cards have a transaction limit, a daily limit and a weekly limit.
Or any mixture of these !

Peter
www.the-languedoc-page.com

Interesting -- I had never thought about the weekend withdrawals; I'll have to ask my credit union. Regarding limits, last summer I found that my long-time credit union would not raise my limit of $200 per day when I requested it, so I opened an account at another credit union which had a $400 per day limit. That worked out pretty well because I could alternate between the two or withdraw from both when I needed to pay hotel bills with cash, for example. And that's another thought -- I found that if you're staying 3 nights or longer, you're likely to get a discount for paying with cash rather than credit card, if you ask.

The only time I use Travelers Checks these days (and I do) is if I need to pay for lodging in cash.

I know the ATM is the best value, but I am not willing to be stuck with only one method of getting cash (especially when so much of it will go directly to the B&B/hotel).

So check with your home bank to find out your daily limit for ATM withdrawls, raise it if you can. And/or if you take travelers checks simply plan to go to a bank with ID and cash them, as mentioned above (not spend them directly with the B&B).

Even though all the places you're staying will only take cash, it still is not necessary to carry traveler's checks. As someone already mentioned, you can increase your daily ATM withdrawal limit. Its also easy to just open another account at a different bank, so then you have another ATM or debit card, hence another method of obtaining money. You can then make two back to back withdrawals from every ATM you use. I've done this on a few trips in the past when the little hotels and pensiones would take only cash.

thanks, platzman. I like the completely separate second bank account with ATM card idea! Both for having a plan B for emergencies, but also the double amount daily withdrawl possible by using both accounts.

ATMs are everywhere a tourist is likely to go. However, if you get off the beaten path and go to VERY small towns/villages, you will find that many do not have an ATM. Get your cash from an ATM before heading out to the boondocks.