I thought that when I use my ATM card in France I will not be able to choose which account I'm drawing from and that it will automatically draw from checking. But I just called my credit union to notify them that I'm traveling and they said that it would default to SAVINGS??

I'm dubious about this information since it's a small office and they don't seem to know much about international travel. I'll have a computer with me to access my accounts online so I can move money around if necessary but I wondered if anyone else had their withdrawal default to savings.

You can specify what account your ATM card accesses. That is what we do with our credit union account. We have never tried to withdraw from the savings account which is kept at a minimum anyway, but from what others say, it simply will not work in Europe.

Take an ATM card on another account for back-up. My credit union card (on the savings account because that is all I have there) did not work at all when I was in France and Spain a couple of years ago. The CU could not figure out why it did not work and I had to have them transfer money to my Wells Fargo account so I could access it with that card.

More precisely, any ATM withdrawal will be deducted from your primary account if you have more than and they are "linked".

It has been my experience that the concern is not specifically the account type from which your ATM withdrawals in France will be taken, it is that you will not have the ability to choose among different accounts.

My ATM withdraws from an interest bearing account but this same account is the default (or primary) account from which all withdrawals are made.

I've never had a problem with my cards, and thought the situation was as Sarastro says -- you just can't choose. For example, I have a card that withdraws from a money market account, which I sure consider savings, and I had no problem using that in France.

For a while, my Citibank ATM withdrawals defaulted to a money market or an e-savings account (can't remember which). I don't know about your credit union, but I was able to specify which account I wanted to get my money out of with the Citibank (the foreign ATM may not let you, but I've seen ATMs that allow that option).

It's been switched back to checking. I forget how or why, but I realized that there's an advantage to this because my checking automatically links to overdraft protection. I keep a very small balance in my checking accounts, not that this really matters that much these days. And when I travel I sometimes forget to transfer money over. But overdraft protection kicks in and all's well.

Let me just add to the above. With Citi, my ATM card has a debit feature also, and that also comes from checking. As I mentioned, I'm pretty sure that I could choose the account linked to ATM withdrawals. I'm, however, not sure if I could do the same for debit purchases.

I also bank with HSBC and my ATM withdrawals come out of e-savings. I can't recall, however, if I called them to reset this or if it was automatically set up like this.

So basically it's quite possible that savings is linked to ATM withdrawals by default (based on my experiences), and if not, it's also possibly (based on my experiences) to make that the default.

You should be rightly dubious about your credit union's information.

It's not just at a small office. Even at large banks (the top one getting bailouts now) the number of people who really knows how the foreign ATM works with U.S. cards is limited, and the banks try their darnest not give you access to these people.

I had such arrangement: one ATM card associated with a single savings account. As usual, my banks said, "it should work."

But it didn't

I did not trust the bank, so I had two other cards. The ATM card failed to work at multiple banks ATMs. The bank admitted that the transactions from foreign ATM was "dda (demand draft)" type and the savings account "cannot process dda transactions," duh...

My recommendation is not only to use your credit union checking account as a default but also have at least one more (I use three banks. Yes I have been burnt many times) card from a different bank linked to a checkings account.

Hi Pat,

Some savings accounts have the same code as checking accounts (mine does).

However, when you set up your ATM account, you should specifiy the account from which finds are withdrawn.

For security reasons, we recently set up a checking account at a credit union where we have had a savings account for years. The ATM card is blocked from accessing the savings account. While we were gone, we kept a small amount in our checking, transferring money only when necessary. Since we were worried about using a debit card and having our finances drained, this set-up worked perfectly.

Before leaving, we mapped the most convenient ATM's that would work with our card by checking the following site:

http://visa.via.infonow.net/locator/global/

(Strangely, our card had a Visa logo but could not be used for store purchases. Thankfully, we were told this in advance.)

We didn't have a single problem using the card, and were happy to see a lack of foreign transaction fees when we returned. The Credit Union (which is small) was very helpful and actually suggested this arrangement for foreign travel. As far as ATM use and money management, it was the smoothest trip we've had in a long time.

--Annie