BigRuss

I'm failing to understand why the OP won't use a credit card that has no conversion fee (barclayscard, Cap One Venture, Chase United, etc.) for foreign exchange instead of going on about paying in cash. As long as you have MC or Visa, you'll be able to pay in 90%+ of restaurants and won't have to deal with carrying around "lots of" koruna.

I'm also failing to understand why quokka typed the fruity description of a republic above and Fodors generated a link to a web store for a clothing chain.

Ingo

Was in the Czech Republic just this week and found that by far not all the places took Euro. Those that did offered a very bad exchange rate.

For example, the small, family run coffee bar did accept Euros, but no credit card. The bus driver did only accept Czech Koruna. The hotel-restaurant presented the check in Euros without being asked to - at a lousy exchange rate, and I insisted on paying in Czech Koruna, of course. Drawing Korunas from the ATM was funny, too - they (Komercni Banka) offered a "guaranteed exchange rate" of 24.65 CZK per 1 Euro and asked me to confirm that - LOL! I did of course NOT confirm, pressed the other button and my German bank calculated 26.96 CZK per 1 Euro - much better deal.

thursdaysd

"they (Komercni Banka) offered a "guaranteed exchange rate""

Ah yes, the egregious DCC scam has unfortunately spread to ATMs.

Christina

okay, folks, I can answer the reason, I believe, this isn't so crazy a question as to make this big a deal of it. Because Koruna aren't used anywhere else. So, yes, it would be a heck of a lot easier if they accepted euro which you may be using in other countries as part of that trip. I go to Europe annually and always take home my extra euro as I know I'll go again, but I won't take home extra koruna as I don't know when I'll be back (and someday, they may actually start using the euro, but it's been a while since they became part of the EU, over ten years, but not eurozone). So it's hard to predict exactly how much to take out of an ATM, I don't want to scrimp, so take out more than I definitely need to be safe and not have to make a lot of withdrawals, so you lose money converting it back upon departure.

I don't find this unusual or hard to understand. If you did not lose any value in paying by euro (Because the CR is actually part of the EU), then sure, it would be easier to pay euro. I think the OP was just asking if that were true.

I can't answer the CC question but again, if you don't travel abroad a lot, you probably don't make CC decisions based on the foreign conversion fee policy. That's my guess. A lot of people who don't travel abroad or haven't before, aren't even aware of that issue, actually. And some of those cards named are not free, either (like the United one, that costs $95 a year). And having just had a lot of major disputes with the Cap One crummy service, I'm not a big fan of them and if I didn't go abroad a lot, I wouldn't have one of their cards, either.

BigRuss

Cap One has been great for us. And when we had iffy charges, they took them off with no problem. Just need to stay on top of the need to alert Cap One when you go out of the country because it is probably the MOST fraud-attentive company of the issuers we've had.

Considering the usefulness of points and mileage cards regardless of whether the user travels a lot, those minor fees are no big deal. Considering this is a travel forum, the usefulness of those cards should be self-evident.

davangco

wow ! 3 per cent commission with ing , 2 euro atm charge on top of that questionable exchange and dodgy atms ?
maybe take chances with local shonks , start by asking "how many Koruna for 100 euro ? say 24 kurona or more might be good enough option