Currency Exchange - best way
 

I will be in Ireland for vacation in November this year. The US dollar is in pretty bad shape, so I would like to know the best way to exchange my dollars. Should I wait until I am in the country and change money at the airport/bank or should I go through Bank of America or something here in the states before I head out? Any info would be of great help. Thank you!

If you will look below there are about 500 threads on tis topic.

Do NOT exchange money at all.

Pay for everything you can with your credit cards. For walking around money pull cash with your ATM cards.

These will give you by far the best rates of exchange.

If you're nervous about having no euros on arrival then change $100 at the bureau de change in the departure airport. You will get an awful rate (as in any place in the the US) but for so little money it doesn't matter.

PLEASE listen to nytraveler. If you think the $/€ exchange is bad - buying € w/ $ gets you an even worse rate.

Ditto, ditto for the above 2 posts.

There are some important things to do BEFORE leaving home to be sure your credit cards and ATM cards will work in Europe. Read this helpful article: http://tinyurl.com/k3vy6.

I agree with the others. In fact, "Currency exchange" is an archaic term.

Just read Rick Steve's site regarding ATM usage c/o Tim. It says that if your ATM pin has more than 4 digits, it may not work at all. I have a 10 digit pin. I will be traveling to UK, France & Italy this November and I'm concerned that my ATM won't work. I guess I have to resort to the old fashion way of currency exchange.

That would be silly, in my opinion. Why not get a 4-digit pin, possibly on a different account with a low value?

Just go to the bank and change your PIN. Simple.

you have a <b>TEN</b> digit PIN?? Did you choose it or was it just the original one set up by your bank that you can change later? I don't think I could cope w/ a 10 digit PIN.

Anyway - the 4-digit PIN is <u>old</u> news. That was true years ago but now you can use a 5 or 6 digit PIN. If it were me, I'd reset my PI(N to 4 or 5 digits. Just MHO.

Yup, I went ahead and changed my pin to a 4 digit one. So I feel better now. I just hope that I won't forget my new pin number since I had my 10 digit code for over 10 years.

We just returned from 2 weeks in Italy and used two ATM cards for our entire trip. Was very pleased to see the lower exchange rates (1.35 or so) versus posted $1.42 at exchange places. we used one card for hotels and car and other for cash withdrawals. Capitol One and Commerce bank cards with no ATM chrages

crickway, you say no ATM charges with Capital One. You mean you have a checking account with Capital One and used that ATM card for ATM withdrawals -- separate from their credit card?
Also curious if Commerce or Capital One added the &quot;usual&quot; 1% conversion charge onto your bank statement for ATM withdrawals, or have you gotten that statement yet? I guess Capital One doesn't add that 1% for their credit card statements, but am not sure how their ATM withdrawals work.

I'm also astounded at that &quot;$1.35 or so&quot; as I can't see where even the actual XE rate dropped below $1.36 in the past three weeks.

I wonder about that also, as Capital One only has banking in a couple states where you could get an ATM card (La and Texas). As I said in another post making that statement, I have a Capital One ATM card for a Capital One MM account (you can get one with that, but it's not like a regular bank acct ATM card, of course). They do have fees to use that card in an ATM abroad, it's not free ($2 per withdrawal, flat fee). It's not free in the US, either, but is around $1, I think. Maybe it's free with a Capital One regular checking account.

I asked the last person who said that what kind of Capital One account they had that they got an ATM card, but I don't think I ever saw their reply, if there was one and now I can't find that post. It's kind of odd that they would not have a fee to use an ATM abroad with the checking accts but would with their MM accounts. After all, I am keeping a lot more money in that account than most people do in checking, so should get as good or better terms.

Even in Texas, they have a lot of different checking accounts like most banks do, and I would imagine their fee terms vary among those.

The USA dollar is worth less every day. The government is 'printing money'. Exchange rates are not 'bad' or 'awful' they are simply realistic. Until the government reigns in unfunded spending, dollar value will decline! Fortunately, inflation in the USA is still almost unnoticeable. One company is raising ATM fees to $3.00 per use.