Exchange money
 

I am spending 3 days in London ($200 or so USD)

I am spending 7 days in France ($800 or so USD)

I am spending 3 days in Belgium ($400 or so USD)

I am spending 5 days in Prague ($500 or so USD)

Do I need to exchange money in each country? Are USD accepted? What do you suggest? Any certain places that I would receive the best exchange rate?

Nobody will be interested in US dollars... it's not 1945. ;^)

You will get the best exchange using your own bank card in an ATM. Notify your bank of your travel plans.

London will be pounds. France and Belgium use Euros,
the Czech Republic korunas. Try to minimize the amounts left over between countries with different currencies... you always lose when exchanging money.

No, US dollars are NOT accepted. No, you do not have to exchange cash for other currency. Yes, you get cash in the country's currency from an ATM at the airport, or train station, or local bank. just make sure your bank knows where you are going for what dates so they don't think someone is stealing your money when the transactions show up.

I'm not using ATM or credit card. What's my other options?

I don't have an ATM card. If I get one by next week, do all ATM's charge the same fee and have the same exchange rate?

This must be your first trip to Europe. Once again, nobody will accept US $ just as we do not accept euros, pounds or Czech korunas. I realize US $ are widely accepted in North America and the Caribbean but that is not the case in other parts of the world.

I hope you will open your mind to using ATM and credit cards, otherwise you will lose a considerable amount of money on exchange fees. If you insist on doing it the old fashioned way then I hope someone can help. Unfortunately so few people do that anymore you might be hard pressed to find anyone who can offer advice on good places to exchange. Quite honestly, this is no good way to exchange other than using your ATM and credit cards.

Enjoy your trip.

I just saw your second post about ATM cards. Your bank will charge the ATM fee so you need to ask that question to the bank. Credit unions tend to have the lowest fees. If you use Bank of America you can use Barclay's ATMs in the UK and BNP Paribas in France and you will pay no fees at all. Unfortunately there are no partners in Belgium or Czech Republic so the charge will be $5/withdrawal.

NOTE: When I was in Belgium I had trouble with my ATM card because it was a regular ATM card and not a debit card. Our poster Patrick had the same problem. Please be sure to ask your bank for a debit card and not a regular ATM card.

Just as an aside - do those amounts include hotels, meals, transportation, admissions [museums etc], meals, etc cause they seem awful low. Carrying all that cash is not a smart idea, if you must do it, be sure to use a safe and secure means of carrying the cash: use something like this for most cash:
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Protege-Ai...older/17119287

and keep only what you will need in public in a wallet secured in a zipped inside pocket.

If you are leaving next week, chances of getting an account opened and an debit card are slim. If you live near a Capital One bank, they have no fee debit cards when you open a checking account. You can do it online, but not in a week.

You should pay for any sizable charges - hotels, meals etc with a credit card and pull walking around money from your checking account with an ATM card at the machine in any bank - just as in the US.

If you insist on taking that amount of cash with you (highly NOT recommended since it is too risky) you can change at bureaux de changes or larger banks when they are open - but you will lose about 10% of your money that way.

I'm curious how you decided on those amounts of money for those cities? Are you taking a tour? If so - they should certainly have given you an info pack including how best to obtain foreign currency.

If you're not taking a tour - can;t imagine the amounts you have listed are nearly enough to do anything with.

thanks, I'm going to see what my bank can do. I have already bought all my train tickets, my hotels are paid for and my tours are all bought. This is just spending money for food, etc.
I just don't want to spend $100 in fees. Not even sure I have a debit card. Never used one.

Yes, I am green at all this.

Do all ATM give the same rate? I don't know if I'm even asking that right? Need a debit card, not an ATM card, right?

Koryandleslie: For possible future reference, no, those particular countries don't take dollars, but there are countries that do, like Argentina where, although I exchanged money into pesos, for nearly a week, I used cash, U.S. dollars, in Buenos Aires. This was in 2008. I shopped with them at the mall, paid tours with them, and used them for a variety of other things. When I asked if I could pay in dollars, people were more than willing to take them. There are other countries in the world that I have also used dollars. I've been on all of the continents. Happy Travels!

Let me see if I can make some of you understand....I live way out in the county. We have 1 bank about 15 minutes from my house. The refuse to have an ATM there because it kept getting broken into at night and the money was long gone before the cops made it in from "town" which is 25 minutes away. I know that sounds strange to some, but we work with cash money or credit cards on-line here. Simple way of life.

.....I just don't want to spend $100 in fees....... But what you do not understand is that you will spend lots of fees in exchanging dollars for local currency at the various money exchange bureaus. Use a debit card at a local ATM is the cheapest and most convenient way to obtain local currency. All ATMs have the same exchange rate which is within one percent of the interbank rate. After that the card issuer determines all fees so ask them. Even with the average fees on debit cards is still much cheaper than the fees and/or poor exchange your receive from exchange bureaus.

Anytime a country takes dollars in lieu of their currency, the exchange rate will be very poor so I would not do that. So you pay even more.

Ok....now I just need to get an ATM card.

Here's a primer about the choices you have . . .

No matter the method, the entity that exchanges your dollars for the local currency abroad will make money doing so. It is difficult to avoid fees entirely, but you can make smart choices to keep fees very low.

Many people here are referring to an ATM or debit card, which are probably the same thing. The important fact is that it is the card that accesses your bank account and you use it to draw money from ATMs at home and worldwide. Using this card to get cash in a foreign land will probably be the least expensive way to do so as fmpden said, because it is using a computer to draw money directly from your bank account—low effort. Some bank accounts charge higher fees than others, so shop around for the lowest rates.

Credit cards are good for charging larger expenses. Credit cards also charge fees for international use, and again the fees vary by issuer, so it pays to shop around. While you can use a credit card to get cash, it is a very, very, very, very, very bad idea. A cash advance from a credit card is considered a loan and an especially high finance charge kicks in at the moment you withdraw the money. Getting a cash advance from a credit card is truly for dire emergencies only.

Travelers checks still exist, but few banks and exchange bureaus want to handle them because it is labor intensive to do so. Therefore, if you find a place to change travelers checks, you will also find fees attached to the transaction that are higher than those for using an ATM card. Plus you pay a fee to get the checks in the first place.

I suppose one could carry the $1900 you estimate you need as cash, but then you run the risk of losing it. How savvy are you about minding your belongings in unfamiliar large cities? By your own admission, you are from a pretty small town with no experience of international travel. Personally, I am from NYC, have been to Europe about 40 times, and do an excellent job of keeping alert about my belongings, but I would never want to chance carrying that amount of currency on vacation to multiple countries, even in a money belt.

Well, I live a great deal more than 15 mins from the nearest bank, but I still find having a debit card essential to daily life. What do you buy groceries with?

But if you can't get one in time, let's look at the hysterical (and downright innumerate) overreaction that's a feature of this forum at the suggestion of using credit cards for cash.

For most of the $2000 you want to spend, credit cards are just fine.It's really very difficult indeed to think of anything you can't use credit cards for - unless you're one of those imperialist Americans who believe they've got a moral responsibility to infect the civilised world with their filthy tipping disease (simple rule of thumb: we don't tip. Not 100% the case - but no-one cares)

So let's imagine you just need a couple of hundred dollars in cash, really. Get it from a cash machine on your credit card and you're charged what? 15% until you get home and pay it off? 15% of $200 for one 25th of the year?

Cost you about $1.

Infinitely less than it'd cost you to change travellers' cheques if you managed to find the only bank in Europe that'll have anything to do with these dinosaurs of the financial system. And less still (I know: if you're bashing other people's innumeracy you can't, with consistency, go on about about "more than infinity". But why be consistent?) than the cost of having your cash stolen.

So trivial indeed that it really isn't worth the hassle of trying to get a debit card before you leave. Charge everything, make sure your card works abroad (tell your bank before you go) and just take with you a few hundred dollars (as well as a bit in the currency of the first country you're calling at to guard against the supremely unlikely eventuality that the bureaux de change aren't open at your first European airport. A phenomenon I've never once encountered in my life)

Incidentally, unless she's just sloppy in her writing, the poster who claimed that " Unfortunately so few people do that anymore you might be hard pressed to find anyone who can offer advice on good places to exchange" has clearly not visited a major European city in centuries.

Bureaux de change are far more pestiferously ubiquitous than Starbucks and McD put together. If the poster meant "places to change travellers' cheques", though: too right.

If she meant "no-one on this forum can advise about bureaux de change", she might be right. The simple way of finding the best place is to walk up and down the street comparing how much, net, you'll get for your $100 or whatever. Ignore "no commission" signs (they are, in effect playing with words to deceive you, but that doesn't mean they're offering a bad rate).

Flanneruk's calculations of the cost of borrowing money on a credit card do not fit my experiences. The rate of interest is likely to be closer to 20 per cent and some if not all cards charge that amount on the entire credit card balance, not just the amount withdrawn as cash. Keep in mind that the cash is indeed a loan whereas a debit card withdraws your owm money from your account.
The only economical way to use a credit card for cash advances is to pay off your credit card in full just before you leave home, and also pay the extra amount you think you may need while travelling. Then you can withdraw that surplus without interest charges. Keep in mind that any purchases on the credit card will reduce that surplus. And fees for foreign transactions still apply, as they will for debit withdrawals.
It is certainly true that travel cheques are outdated. They are certainly inconvenient. Many Paris bank branches now won't touch foreign exchange in any form. Merchants don't want to play banker for tourists. And non-bank exchange bureaux exist to take your money away from you.
Two other points that haven't been mentioned: Be sure to have a four-digit PIN number for any card. And an American ATM/debit card may or may not be accepted in stores or restaurants -- that's why carrying both an ATM and a credit card gives the most peace of mind.

"The rate of interest is likely to be closer to 20 per cent and some if not all cards charge that amount on the entire credit card balance, not just the amount withdrawn as cash."

That is my experience as well. The finance charge applies to the balance, not just the withdrawal.

A couple of things here....for once I agree with flanneruk, he basically does have it right but there is a caveat to it. Most American credit card agreements, most but not all, establish two separate accounts within the account. One for cash advances and the other for purchases. If you pay off the purchase balance within the grace period, usually 25 days, you never pay a penny of interest on it but be careful...once interest starts accruing on purchases, it continues one additonal billing cycle even if you pay off the entire purchases balance on the next billing cycle..you get nailed at that point for all the accrued interest on purchases.

Now as far as cash advances are concerned. Even if it's 20%, it's a daily charge. So if you withdraw $100 in a cash advance transaction on a credit card from an ATM and pay it off immediately on returning home, say three weeks later, flanneruk is absolutely right. The interest charge is a little over $1...the key of course is not to string it out. But what you do have to watch out for are fees on top of the interest. Wells Fargo Bank, criminals that they are, I believe charges $5 for any sort of cash advance and that escalates as the amount of the advance increases on top of the interest. Citibank, Chae, Bank of Amerca are other banks that have large fees on top of the interest for cash advances on their credit cards. So that is something you have to ask about and be aware of.

As far as exchange rates, for the most part visa/mc use the interbank rate as listed in the paper or at xe.com. They add 1% mark up to cover themselves, so they claim, for currency fluctuations. Many of the same near criminal banks we mentioned above, now add an additional 2% fee to the interbank rate for god knows what as they have nothing to do with the conversion for a total of 3%. There is one good guy in all this, namely Capital One, which not only does not add a surcharge on currency transactions but eats the visa/mc 1% fee. Whether it's a cash advance or a purchase, if your card is issued byone of the near criminal banks listed above, you pay 3% above the interbank rate. However, when you exchange cash, a good rate is 10% above interbank and some places charge 15% above interbank rates. And watch out when they say no fees. They add the fee to the percentage mark up. In the UK, a good place to exchange cash is at Marks & Spencer whose Bureau de Change have good rates..

Also watch out for a scam known as dynamic currency conversion. I won't go through all the particulars here but there was a recent thread on this SCAM and how many of the near criminal banks we referred to above also charge the 3% even if your bill is in US dollars.

Finally, different countries really have adopted the "American" way of credit cards in different manners. The UK, especially London, is just like any American city. Almost everybody takes credit cards for just about everything. Arrived at Heathrow, charged my oyster card top up on my credit card. Checked into the hotel, credit card. Topped u p my mobile phone at the convenience store, credit card. Ate lunch at Pret a Manger, credit card. Picked up theatre tickets, credit card. Stopped at a convenience store to pick up snacks for half time at the theatre, credit card. Ate dinner at a moderately priced restaurant, credit card. I was in London for about a week, made one £20 ATM withdrawal and didn't need another red penny (or is it pence?)...howerver, I wouldn't count on this ability in many other European countries such as the Czech Republic where credit cards may not be the same way of life they are in London (Germany, Holland are much more cash societies, in France they sometimes look at you like man you're crazy if you try to charge something for less than 10€ although I've never had that problem in London for amounts as long as they are over £1.

It reminds me of the story of Queen Victoria going down to the dock for the first America's Cup race ready to greet the first British ship to cross the finish line. Suddenly a lone ship came around the bend heading for the finish Her majesty asked her adjutant which of her ships that was. He looked through his binoculars and said, "I'm afraid your Majesty it's the American ship." She then asked, "Which of our ships is second?" He looked through his binoculars again and said, "I'm afraid your Majesty, there is no second." When you travel the best way to travel is with credit cards. There is no second best way to travel!

Flanner UK's calculation smay work in europe but the credit card rules are very different in the US and the cost will indeed be much higher. there is often a flat fee for a cash advance as well as interest - which can be as much as 25% - and will apply to the entire amount on the card, all new purchases as well as the cash advance.

Much better to charge only on a card which has no balance and which you do NOT take a cash advance from. The ATM/debit card should be attached to your checking account and you must have the money you will be spending in the checking account (ATMS in europe don;t allow you to move money between accounts). A bank ATM is europe does not charge anything. You bank will charge some sort of fee - how much depends on the bank and on the type(s) of accounts and balances you have. (SOme people here complain that Citibank is ery expensive, but we are charged no fees for using Citicards - probably due to the mortgage and other accounts we have there.)

All banks and credit card companies charge you a small percentage above the Interbank exchange rate (this is the "official" rate published in the newspaper and online, and which is used only for transactions of millions of dollars or more between financial institutions. You will usually pay 1% to 2% more than this. For perspective, bureau de changes will usually charge you 9-10% over this rate for cash that you change. They may say no fee, and there will be NO FEE, but a really awful rate of exchange.

And if you're very naive and not used to large cities/street wise (NEVER let go of your purse - even in a restaurant or hotel until your bedroom door is locked behind you - among a bunch of other things) your chance of being careless and losing everything increases exponentially.

Finally, as far as the amount of money you are taking - I assume that all of your entrance fees to sights are included - otherwise you may find that you are eating premade sandwiches out of supermarkets. (We do one splurge dinner in each city we visit and an upscale dinner for two with quite a moderate wine will cost at least $300.) Remember that prices for meals in world capitals will be significantly higher than they are in a tiny town. Also, realize that soft drinks are very small and very expensive - about $3 for a tiny soda (US doesn;t have sizes that small). And while local wine and beer can be reasonable, hard liquor or mixed drinks are VERY expensive due to very high tax rates.

nytraveler..a bit too much generalizing....not all banks have only one account for purchases and cash....as a matter of fact, I would wager more banks than not separate the two accounts and thus it depends on what fees the bank charges for cash advances whether the arithmetic flanner and I did is correct....I have several credit cards that have no cash advance fee whatsoever...and have separate accounts for purchases and cash. The large banks, of course, tend to have the largest fees. But I would never use my main bank for any of this stuff because no matter how careful you are, there is always the chance of a debit card number or ATM card number being compromised and your main account raided. While for the most part, you will get your money back, it's a hassle to change the automatic payments, to wait for new checks with the new account number and all the other things that go along with this.; Therefore it is helpful to have opened, as I have, an account with an internet bank and Keep $1.01 in the account (no minimum balance required) and just before travelling transfer cash into the account for whatever cash I might need (as noted it depends on the country...some countries are much more 21st century in the use of credit cards than others) and I can alway hit an internet cafe to transfer money in (have never had to but that option is open).

TGhen you say all banks charge something aove the interbank rate and that's simply not true. I know from recent travels that Capital One charges the interbank rate (I am sure their bean counters have found that is the claim to fame of capitla one credit cards and the large number of accounts attracted to Capital One offsets the loss they incur by eating the visa/mc 1% fee). I have been using another credit card serviced by FIA (which is the old MBNA which was bought out by Bank of America) that was originally offered by Charles Schwab. This card also does not charge a fee for foreign transactions, eats the 1% visa/mc fee and gives a 2% bonus on all charges....to me it makes foreign charges 5% cheaper as I get the 2% bonus and don't pay the near criminal 3% foreign transaction fee imposed by Citibank, Chase, Bank of America and the evil banks of that ilk. Unfortunately, that credit card is being withdrawn fro circulation as of 31/10/11 and am looking for a replacement. I have found a few that do the rewards, Bank of America is offering to replace the card with its cash rewards card, but then you don't get 2% on everything, although you do on groceries and 3% on petrol although limited for each quarter, you get 1% rebate on everuthing but unfortunately you apparently will have tyo pay the near criminal 3% Bank of America foreign transaction fee. On one of the blogs I frequent, we are still looking for a replacement card and haven't found one yet. The closest I've come up with is an Amex offered by my Fidelity brokerage account which is a credit card with a 2% rebate on everything. But although Amex charges on its cards a 2.7% foreign transaction fee, this card charges 1%. It's a lot to ask for a credit card with all these perks but that doesn't mean we'll stop looking (I just charged to this card with time running out a $5,000 medical bill.....what I do is not have the medical group submit my bills to the insurance company for reimbursment directly and then bill me for the difference; I submit the bill to my insurance company, ask for them to send me the insurance payment and then and only then pay the medical group, a bunch of crooks they are. Easiest $100 I ever made! I will let you know if and when I find a replacement credit card (no annual fee, no fx fees and 2% rebates)...

The main piont being that although many people don't understand it, there is no such thing really s a visa (or mastercard) credit card...there is a citibank visa card, or a Bank of America credit card or a Capital One credit card and they all have different policies so one simply cannot generalize.

Koryandleslie, if you are still reading, just a tip from our experience. Sometimes you can't get money out of the ATM with your card and you can't figure out why. This has happened to us numerous times, in many countries. Just keep trying. Try a different ATM, a different bank, wait until the next day, try pressing credit instead of savings etc etc. Just because the money doesn't spit out the first time, doesn't mean you won't be able to get any.

Also if you are taking cash, either US dollars or euros, split it up and hide it in various places. Some in your bag, some in your moneybelt, some in your shoe, some in the room safe (if there is one). Much safer than having it all in one spot.

Kay

Sorry, should have added, don't keep trying like 10 times in one machine. Chances are it will keep your card and you'll have to wait until the bank opens and try and get it back, which could be a hassle (particlarly if you are just about to leave the city or country).

Good luck with it all and have a good trip.
Kay