We are travelling to Scotland, England, Netherlands, and Germany in June/July and wanted to know the best way and/or place to do money exchanges. We live in the U.S. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

The cheapest and most convenient way to obtain local currency is via a debit card at a local bank owned ATM in the country -- bar none!!

99% of the time the best way to do it is to use an ATM. Use credit cards for hotel bills and large purchases. Notify your banks and credit card companies before you leave and see if your bank has a reciprocal deal with other institutions in Europe. For example, BoA fees are waived at BNP Paripas branches in France.

as the others say -- don't <u>exchange</u> currency <i>anywhere</i> . . . get cash w/ your ATMcard

We follow a different pattern than Paris. We go almost a 100% cash. During the last day or two will use a credit card just to manage cash flow so that we come home with a 100 or so Euro or the next trip. Often a hotel will give a discount around 5% ore a bit more for cash payment. Second, with cash you never worry about any credit card scams or number being stolen. And, finally, it is nice to come home to no bills. All fees for debit card usage are charged by your card issuers. There are no ATM usage fees in Europe.

<i>For example, BoA fees are waived at BNP Paripas branches in France.</i>

The same applies to withdrawals from a Barclay's ATM.

Excellent! Thanks for the input! Sounds super simple!

Deutsche Bank in Germany is another partner if you use Bank of America.

As ParisAmsterdam said, you should inform your bank and credit card company before you go--not just to see if they have reciprocal agreements with banks in Europe but also it keeps from having a flag placed on your account. If your bank/CC provider sees a charge on your account from an overseas source and does not know that you are in that country, they will assume fraud and flag your account to prevent any other charges until you contact them. That can be a big headache and waste a lot of your precious vacation time straightening it out.

Be sure your atm/debit card is tied to a checking and not a savings account.

We take cards from two totally different financial institutions so that if one card has a problem, we have another card to try. You just have to find an ATM that matches the networks/logos on your card--Cirrus, Plus, etc. I found that not all ATM's will work with all cards, so it was good to have 2 cards with different networks--we were then always able to use at least one of them.

Credit unions usually have less fees/charges than banks, so if you have time to set up such an account if you don't already have one, that might be a good idea.