Credit Union ATM Card
 

My wife and I are going to London-Paris-Rome soon and are going to use ATMs for cash. We have a Bank of America ATM card and I have contacted the bank to inform them we will be in Europe.
My backup ATM card is from our Credit Union and they say the ATM must be part of Cirrus, Presto or STAR.
Does anybody know if the ATMs in London-Paris-Rome are part of these groups?

All of them are cirrus and star.

Thanks-that makes me feel better.

Star is US/Canada only. I'd never heard of Presto before until you posted but it appears to be the ATM network of Publix supermarkets in the US.

The only worldwide network you listed is Cirrus which is quite prevalent so you shouldn't have any problems finding an ATM that's part of this network.

They all are cirrus - the thing I called star is actually called plus. It's logo looks a bit like a star hence the confusion.

I have a regional bank, not one of those national ones, and my ATM card claims it only has STAR or PLUS networks. It has always worked in Europe, and the bank statement comes through with the foreign transaction fee saying it was due to a STAR transation. Unforunately, my bank has a new 3 pct fee on all foreign ATM withdrawals.

I couldn't understand this, either, as I had read that STAR was only US -- I even asked my bank as to how that was possible, but of course, they were clueless, at least the several people I talked to on the phone. They didn't know anything. But somehow I got money and whether STAR is in Europe or not, somehow that network processed it as far as my bank was concerned. I think they said that is the main network they use for ATMs.

The Star ATM locator only gives a choice of USA or Canada http://star.via.infonow.net/loc/

Plus is a worldwide network.

Perhaps your bank statement just defaults to printing "Star" in the transaction details?

DO NOT DEPEND ON YOUR CREDIT UNION CARD ONLY!!!!!!

DO NOT LEAVE YOUR BANK OF AMERICA CARD AT HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have a credit union debit card with the Master Card logo on the front.

The cu is a member of Plus and Star as is my B of A card.

My credit union card would NOT work in Switzerland at all, and worked at only some of the banks in Scotland.

ALL of the banks at which my credit union card failed had the same network logos on the bank machine.

I tried every major bank in Interlaken and none of them responded the credit union card.

Two of them responded to my Bank of America card.

The absence/presence of network logos really seems to have no bearing on the problem.

I never could get an explanation from the credit union. They were clueless.

Fortunately my credit union card worked at enough banks in Scotland that it proved useful, but it did fail at one of the major Scottish banks.

The credit union card also worked in Germany, which made the Swiss failure even more discouraging.

In the UK, if you use your Bank of America plastic at Barclays there will be no extra charges. You will get £ at the interbank rate of exchange plus 1%. If you go to a non Barclays machine, you get whopped with a $5.00 charge per transaction.

In Paris, BNP Paribas is the associated bank. I don't see anything listed on the B of A web site for Italy.

My credit union ATM with Plus and Cirrus did not work at all in Italy. Luckily I had a BofA ATM at the time.

Check with your CU if others have reported ATM problems. I've had none with my CU in Scotland, France, Germany, Romania, Hungary, Portugal and Spain.

yeah, I thought it might be that my bank statement just always says STAR regardless. The bank didn't know. In any case, it worked and doesn't have Cirrus on it, only STAR and PLUS.

I've never used it in Italy, but have in France a lot, and UK.

I have never had a problem in England, Scotland, Ireland, Switzerland, Germany, France, Netherlands, Italy, Austria, ect... with my Credit Union Debit or Credit Card.

Is it possible that we may be experiencing some problems because of the chip system. It has never been a problem in the past but like analog our swipe cards may be becoming obsolete. Anyone???

Have you compared the fees / exchange rates between the CU card and BofA? In our case, our CU card was a *way* better deal than my Wells Fargo card. You might decide to switch which is your main card and which is your back-up.

Use your BofA ATM at Barclay's in London and BNP Parabis banks in Paris. You get the interbank rate and if you are an Advantage client you don't even pay the 1% International transaction fee.

I just got off the phone with Bank of America. They said if I use their partner banks, then there is no $5 fee and no 1% transaction fee - regardless of whether I'm an Advantage customer or not. Where are some of you hearing that the 1% is assessed to non-Advantage customers?

I always use my credit union ATM card in Europe (France, Holland, Italy, and Switzerland these past two years) and have not had a problem and they haven't charged me to use the card and gave a good exchange rate. That being said, I always carry two ATM cards from different financial institutions with me "just in case."

Some credit unions (incl my husband's) block usage in Italy due to fraud concerns, so make sure your card is open to purchases or ATMs by your credit union.

I work at a Credit Union and have regularly had problems with the CU ATM/VISA debit card not working in Europe (especially in Italy, though also in Paris and some other places in France), while my Wachovia ATM/VISA debit card always worked in the same machines. Also, our Credit Union has occasionally blocked use in some countries when fraud incidents were frequent, so be SURE to take two cards.

Our BellCo credit union ATM and charge cards worked fine in London, Paris and Rome. Gives a good one percent fee, too. Not the three or four percent some banks charge. Do your research to make sure you get a good fee.