getting enough Euros to pay for apartment
 

Greetings again!

I have a question regarding obtaining Euros - I know I can get them from the ATM; but it is not enough to pay for my entire apartment for the week and they want cash upon arrival. We are traveling from Ca. to Paris, Paris to South Africa and then onto Rome. I do not want to have a ton of cash on me in S.A. - we arrive into Rome in the am (around 9:00 am).
Any suggestions welcomed!
Best,
Dawn

Do you mean because of the limits of how much you can withdraw in one day?
Why not just withdraw some at the airport right before you leave SA, then withdraw the rest upon arrival in Rome?
We solve this problem by using more than one account.
Or you could just bite the bullet and pay the surcharge on exchanging travellers checques.

a. wire transfer the funds to the apartment owner's account. You can do this either from your own bank or by setting up an account at xetrade.com (takes some id verification paperwork but cost is lower)

b. negotiate with apartment owner to pay over several days.

c. see if they will accept Euro TC's

z. exchange USD TCs upon arrival in Rome for the required amount.

You coould also consider a bank draft in euros, drawn on a local bank in that country.
Eassentially it is a "certified" cheque that only that person can cash. If it is lost, you can get your money back. I regularly purchase items (small and large values) from Europe and use bank drafts. I have only ever had one sent back, from a person living in a small village. For example in France, my bank has an arrangement with Societe Generale in Paris, branch in 8th arr. They are the intermediaries.

Cheaper than a wire transfer, and you take it with you.

We've been in a similar situation. DH and I each have our own ATM card for our bank account, so we solve the problem by using both cards to withdraw euros.

You could also go to an actual bureau de change and exchange cash that way, although with the various fees you will probably be getting a pretty bad exchange rate.

Tracy

Thanks for the replies - yes, I do mean because of the daily limit. Even if I withdrawl and my dh withdrawls it will not be enough. We do have seperate accounts.
I do not think that the ATM in S.A. disperses Euros - I will double check their currency.
I will ask Sleep in Italy if they will do a certified check or a wire transfer - those are good ideas. I just love this forum!
Thank you!!!
Dawn

Just a minor correction...I would use the words "bank draft" and not "certified cheque". I have no idea if a foreign bank would accept a certified cheque (in euros I assume).

Ask your bank if they will extend your withdrawal limits, even for a limited time. If they will, be sure to tell the the security department you will be using the card in Europe, how much you will withdraw and the dates. And get a phone number that can be called from Europe (no 800s) to deal with any problems.

If you get your bank to increase your daily withdrawal limit, you can use each card multiple times in one day get around the Italian ATM's transaction limit (E200-300). You may be able to do two withdrawals in succession from the same ATM, but if not, go to another ATM.

HI D,

A. Ask for another card for each account - this will give you 4 times the limit of one card.

B. Have your bank raise your daily limit for the day you arrive in Rome.

C. Open another account.

The ATM will limit you to about 250E/transaction, so be prepared to have to repeat a number of times.

((I))

ttt

We encountered the same issue when we rented an apartment in Barcelona. We withdrew the maximum amount from the airport ATM but still had to come up with another $700 or so in cash because our plan to access another account via the ATM fell through.

Since we have an American Express card, we went to the American Express office in Barcelona, where we were able to cash a check for the remaining amount we needed, for no charge.

(In a piece of good fortune, the Barcelona American Express representative was located in the same block as our apartment!)

We've used this option at several American Express offices around the world -- it's very convenient.

I'm curious about the check you wrote and cashed at American Express. Was it on a US bank and written in dollars, but they gave you euros? If so, you say "no charge" but what was the exchange rate? The last time I was going to exchange dollars for Swiss francs in Geneva there was "no charge" either, but they were giving me an exchange rate more than 10% higher than the current bank rates.

Another option if you have an AmEx card is express cash. You can link your card to your checking account and use it like an ATM card. It is a 3% fee for withdrawal with a $5.00 minimum. However, unlike an ATM card you can take up to $2500/wk with no daily limit. You would still have to visit several ATM's because of their limit. Since it didn't cost anything to sign up, we did this as a backup in case we had problems with our ATM card or it was lost or stolen.

I negtiate with a bank manager a week before our trip to Rome to increase my ATM withdrawal limit for the first 2 days we were there. This allowed me to get enough euro fromt he ATM after we landed, while still at the airport. I was about to meet the person from "Sleep in Italy" and had to pay lots of euro. It worked out perfectly for us.

How refreshingly honest many of you seem to be. :-) Wire transfer to the landlord's account? Bank draft that he would have to deposit in his account? Yeah, right.

This question came up on another thread recently. Landlords want payment in cash so they can hide the income from the taxman. ;-)

Thanks again everyone. I was am going to contact my banks (Washington Mutual and Wells Fargo) and raise the limits - I am also going to call Amex - we are "platinum" holders - and thus far it has been meaningless... so maybe they can assist in some fashion.
Ira - as always you give the best advice <grin>.

Dawnnoelm: We went to Spain last month and needed cash up front for the apartment also. Before leaving the US, we contacted our Visa card through our bank and had them give us a temporary daily increase for ATM withdrawal so that we could take out the money when we arrived at the airport in Madrid which we were able to do with no problem.

Just an addition to the wire/draft suggestions: this is unlikely to work in Italy. Many, many, many Italians refuse to accept any payment to their bank accounts, not just apartment owners - even larger businesses. They simply don't feel like paying taxes, that's why cash is the most important, and very often the one and only accepted payment method in Italy.

Hi dawn,

>I am also going to call Amex - we are "platinum" holders...

Getting TC in Euro from Amex will be the easiest and safest way - though more expensive than an ATM.

Check with the landlord/agent to make sure that TCs will be acceptable.

((I))

Neopatrick -- our check to Amex was in U.S. dollars, on a U.S. account, and the Amex office gave us euros. Maybe there was a fee or a bad exchange rate (I don't think so), but we got the cash we needed, when we needed it. Yay!

"Maybe there was a fee or a bad exchange rate. . ."

OK, that explains it. When we don't care if it costs 10% or so extra, that works just fine. Paying an extra $70 or so to get $700 may not be an issue.

But please don't refer to it as "no charge".

For the trip we recently took, my parents had a Visa travel card (money is on the card, not linked to a bank account). It worked out very well - we withdrew 1300 Euros in one transaction upon our arrival to pay for the balance of the apartment. No problems whatsoever. We also used Sleepinitaly.

Was that Visa Travelcard like an AAA Visa Travel Card? If so, it charges you 7% on every foreign transaction, whether a purchase or an ATM withdrawal. In other words that 1300 euro withdrawal probably cost you a transaction fee of about $130 over usual ATM rates. That's a VERY high price to pay for a little convenience.

In case it looks like my math was off above (it slightly was):

1300 euro @ 1.359 (today's rate) =$1767.00
7% currency conversion charge on $1767 = $123.69
This of course does not include the cost of purchasing a Visa Travel Card or of loading additional funds on it.

It must have been different. It was through a credit union and we got a rate of approximately $1.40/1 Euro with no extra fee for conversion (other than the standard $2 ATM fee that almost every card charges). It was free to get the card and while you can be charged to put on additional funds, they just made sure to put enough on in advance, and there was no charge for removing the extra funds upon return.

Further clarification on the Amex issue.

I confirmed with American Express that Amex card holders can cash a personal check for up to $1000 at an Amex office (the emergency check cashing privilege). There is no fee for this service, and the exchange rate is the same exchange rate you would get through a bank ATM.

So my initial statement that the checks we have written in Barcelona and other countries were cashed for "no charge" was correct.

Sorry for not being more precise in my response.

That's really an interesting piece of news. So I guess the smart thing to do is to carry a check with you. If you walk into a European American Express office with $ 1000 cash, they charge a very high conversion fee for converting it to euros. But if you write it in the form of a check, they don't?

aprillilacs,

Do you know if this offer is avaliable to all Amex card holders, even in Paris? If so, thank you so much for the information! We need to pay the remainder of our apartment in euros, and if I can cash a check, I won't have to worry about ATM problems.

Here's the statement on the Amex web site:

Emergency Funds Access
"Personal check cashing and/or funds access is a benefit available to some American Express Cardmembers. Each Card product has its own polices & restrictions. In general, a Cardmember can only receive Emergency Funds Access every seven (7) days inside their country of billing. However, outside of the billing country it is usually every 21 days.Cardmembers are advised to check with their issuing Card Services Department before traveling to verify the policy specific to their Card; they should then check with the American Express Travel Location directly to verify policies and availability of the service. Some Travel Offices may only dispense Travelers Cheques and no cash, as they do not have currency on hand."

It appears from the web site that the Amex office at 11 rue Scribe in Paris offers this service. But to be safe, you should call Amex and confirm that your particular card will get you this service, and that the Paris office in fact participates.

No, I am NOT an American Express representative. But this service has been really helpful for us in the 3 or 4 different places where we've needed to access extra funds during our travels over the years--most recently Barcelona, where we would have been in a real bind if it hadn't been an option.

I just got off the phone with American Express as I too could use some "free" euro exchange for several apartment rentals.
I have an American Express platinum card from Costco. It can work like an ATM card, and I can get cash at an ATM or at an American Express office. But there is a $3 per transaction fee, plus a 2% conversion fee, plus a cash advance (interest) fee at 23.24% starting the day the money is taken.

After much discussion and then turning me over to a supervisor I was told because my card can work like an ATM card, I cannot use it to cash a personal check -- or at least it has nothing to do with my card. She mentioned that some AMEX cards cannot be used as an ATM card and therefore you can set up to link to a bank account, but the same fees mentioned above will then apply.

Meanwhile, she suggested that most American Express offices in Europe will cash a check for you and they will accept your AMEX card as a form of ID, but according to this supervisor, those offfices would do so at whatever their current posted rates of exchange are, and she suggested that it is usually in the range of 7%.

I won't hold my breath at finding an American Express office that will exchange funds (by cashing a check in a foreign currency) and waive all their usual conversion fees.

Aprillilacs was posting as I was.

All that quote from the website pretty much echos what the supervisor on the phone said to me. She also mentioned the frequency dates, etc. What the website never says is what percent they will charge for doing so. It is still kind of hard to believe that they don't charge anything. And according to the person I talked to they certainly will charge.

I actually quit AmEx several years ago after a couple trips i a row when European (Paris, Rome) offices provided absolutely no service when I needed it. Since then I have been tempted by some of their brochures, but (miserly old geezer that I am) when I read the fine print their charges are way above what is available elsewhere. As Patrick points out, they disclose some charges outright but others are more obscure, like the fact that the exchange rate is horrendous.
The last few years, as banks have been continually devising new ways to add fees, I have been using a credit union ATM card and it has been great. Sure, there are some fees, but much less than banks and a far better deal than travelers' checks.

Patrick - I was interested to see what AmEx told you regarding fees, etc as I talked to them a couple of weeks ago and got different numbers. We have our card set up as an ATM card linked directly to our checking account. The fees I was told was 3% with a $5.00 minimum and whatever ATM fee the bank charges for use of their ATM. It's a 2% fee when you use the card to charge anything.

We set up our card as an ATM card our first trip to Europe as a backup. We've never had to use it, but I just like knowing I have that option if anything happens to our regular ATM card.

SINCE WE ARE ON THIS SUBJECT... These ATM machines in Italy- are they like machines here where, depending on who owns it, you pay anywhere from $1.50 to $4.00 to get a withdrawal? If so, do one of you travelers have the name of the best-rate ATM providers in Italy?

sarge56: European banks don't charge fees to use their ATMs - the only fee is whatever your own bank charges.

(As long as you use a <u>bank</u> machine)

way cool! Thanks, janisj. :)

Update on this... Giulia from Sleep in Italy got back to me - and what do you know ...the owner of my rental will take a bank transfer. I am happy to hear that and will get it done! :-)

I'm glad you got this resolved, dawn. For other people who might have this happen, this is what I've done in the past.

Last year in Czech Republic and this coming year in Hungary, both places I chose to stay were cash only. In both instances I asked in advance (before I booked) if I could pay over several days. For example, I would pay for three days upon arrival, then a day or two later I would pay for another three or four days, and so forth. Both places allowed me to do this. It may not work everywhere, but it's worth a try.

hi, Dawn,

glad you got this sorted.

last year I was surprised that we had to pay for our rome apartment in cash [not so surprised a few months later to find the same arrangement for our apartment in Florence - I'm a quick study] - which with the refundable deposit came to over 1000E.

Then the money-belt did come into its own!

however, we were only gonig from home in the UK straight to Rome, not like you, gonig half-way round the world first.

You've solved your problem now, but you could of course have obtained euros in SA by exchanging rands, which you would probably have had to stock-pile over a number of days to get sufficient. plus of course you are effectively exchanging twice.

so the bank -transfer is definitely the way to go, it the owner will play ball.

have a great time,

regards, ann