Euro Question...
 

I am going to Germany and Italy in the 2nd week of August. Was wondering if I should try and get some Euros before I go or just wait? Also, what are usually the best places and best ways to get the best exchange rates? Thanks

Thousands of posts here. Please check the threads!
That said, ATM for cash and low fee (1%) CC for all else.
M

I would suggest that you get 100 Euros in the U.S. before leaving -- a little more than enough to get you from the airport to your first hotel. Depending on where you live, you can get it from your bank (which may require advance notice), from a currency exchange booth in town, or at the airport that you leave from. A downtown currency exchange is probably the easiest and cheapest place, if there are any where you live.

There are endless threads here about this very vexed question. Try typing "ATM", "cash", "debit card" -- all without the quotation signs -- into the search box and you will find more than enough information.

Some people feel "warm & fuzzy" having some Euro with them when they arrive, getting them at the exchange booth at the airport (about $50.00 worth).

I always get mine at the nearest ATM machine when I arrive -- The best exchange rate. Use your CC for purhcases/hotels/rental cars/restaurants when available.

Forget about travelers checks. Also, make sure when the merchants charge your credit card, they charge you in Euros and not U.S $$$. If they do the conversion and charge you in $$$, you'll get a very bad exchange rate. ((b))

If it is convenient and it gives you peace of mind, you can get some Euro from your home bank (people's opinions differ widely on whether this is necessary).

Otherwise, have an ATM card and use the first machine you see at the airport or in the city after you arrive. ATM are generallly considered the best and most economical way to get Euro. They give the daily exchange rate, and the fee per transaction will be from your home bank ($0-3USD typically).

Back this up with some U.S. cash that you could exchange at any bank. Back that up with a credit card and/or travelers checks to use for large expenses or emergency.

suze said "the fee per transaction will be from your home bank ($0-3USD typically)."

She is correct. European ATM's don't charge you a fee. If your bank charges you a fee to use YOUR money from YOUR checking account, get another bank!!! ((b))

In France and Italy, we found that most banks no longer want to change money of any kind. THey have signs in their windows saying they don't change money. Most people don't take travelers checks either. Sometimes, ATMs won't work or won't accept your card. Your ATM card must have a credit card logo on it to work as a debit card, and more and more machines in europe won't even give you cash anymore on a card without the logo. Remember that you can only access your checking account balance on european ATMs, not your savings acct., so put the money you need into checking. Best to take 2 ATM cards or one ATM plus one of those debit cards you can get from AAA or Amex that is pre-loaded with money. If an ATM eats your card, you can't get it back and it's immediately cancelled, so that could leave you in a bind. We found quite a few fussy ATM machines, so don't wait until you're out of money to get more. We took $100 worth of euros with us and got an awful exchange rate from our home bank. Never take cash out on your credit card if you can possibly avoid it, because the interest is huge and starts immediately.

Lesliec1, I'm curious. When you say you found quite a few fussy ATM machines, what exactly were the problems? Malfunction? Error messages? Card retained by the machine? How often did this happen?

<Never take cash out on your credit card if you can possibly avoid it, because the interest is huge and starts immediately.>

Not necessarily. It all depends. True, you pay interest which starts the day of the transfer, but if you have a 12% annual interest credit card (which is high considering today's standards), and you take out $300.00 on your credit card and pay it off as soon as you get your statement when you return, the interest accrued would only be about 1% or $3.00. That's about the same that some people's banks charge just to use their debit cards/transaction fees with their credit cards.

Get a bank that doesn't charge a fee to use your ATM card, and get a credit card that doesn't charge a fee to use your credit card (other than the 1% that Mastercard/VISA charge). ((b))

platzman, I can only assume what she means is that some ATM's only work on the Cirrus Network, and some only work on the Plus Network, but a lot use both. If she had a Cirrus card and put it into an "Plus only" machine, it wouldn't work.

I only have had one such encounter in all the times I've been using the ATM's in Europe. My ATM card works on the Plus system. Maybe I've been lucky. ((a)) ((b))

We had MAC/Visa ATM cards. Sometimes, the ATM machine would just spit the cards back out.(And this was at an ATM that had just worked for the person before us.) Sometimes we'd get a message in Italian that we assumed meant the machine was out of order. One machine told us that our bank had not approved the transaction--we retried with 3 different cards on 2 accounts and got the same message. 20 minutes later at a different ATM, we had no problem. Fortunately, no machine ever ate any of our cards and we didn't have any instances where we didn't get our money but the bank said we did, which I've read on the internet can happen and is a pain to resolve. As for cash advances on credit card, you must have a better credit card company than mine, which charges 22%!!! I never do cash advances, so I didn't realize their usuristic (is that a word?) rate until just before our trip.

>One machine told us that our bank had not approved the transaction--we retried with 3 different cards on 2 accounts and got the same message. 20 minutes later at a different ATM, we had no problem. <

This was probably because your bank's computer was down. Many computers are taken off line in the wee small hours of the morning, so if you are trying to use an ATM at 10:00 AM in Italy remember that it is only 4:00 AM on the East Coast of the US.