Money in Europe
 

Hello,
I have been living in the US for 11 months, but now I am returning to my country, after a trip to Europe and Canada for 45 days and was wondering the best way of getting cash there.
Certainly it would be ATMs, but I have a Chase account in the US and they charge 3.5% for each ATM withdrawal plus 2-3USD!!!!
I have enough traveller checks in dollars since I came to the US for this year and there are some remaining. What do you think I should do?
- Use my traveller checks in Europe and Canada(VISA, in USD)
- Use Chase ATM card anyway
- Use my credit card
- Get cash (euros and CAN) in the US before my trip
- Any other ideas?
Thanks!

If that is indeed the charge for ATM w/d's, then I suggest finding a new bank. That is really excessive.

Just FYI:

My bank charges the usual 1% mark-up for the ATM, plus no fee if I use a partner bank. If no partner bank is available, the fee is $5. That's a lot, so if I'm in a country with no partner bank, I go to plan B, which is:

My credit union charges the usual 1% mark-up plus $1 per ATM withdrawal.

You can do better. Find a bank with more reasonable fees and use your ATM card.

The problem now is to find a new bank, as we will leave US in 15 days (definitely). We tried BofA today, but they did not want to open an account for us, as we will not leave in US anymore...

Try Citibank and don't tell them you are leaving country permanently. They have partner banks in many countries. Or if you are in a major city, many European banks now have branches in the US.

You will be hit with a fee for changing USD travelers checks into Euros.

The other option, depending on how much money you are depositing is opening an account at a place like Charles Schwab. You can have a checking account with an ATM card, and I think they pick up the fees up to $30. You can also transfer funds into their money market funds and maintain low checking balance. You can get overdraft on checking, too. You can go online and move money around. You do not need to live in US to maintain this.

I can confirm that. On my account, Schwab charges 0% currency markup for cash withdrawals and 0% for debit purchases.

Their ATM fee is $1, of which they absorb the first 30 per month, as noted above.

We managed to open an account at Bank of America and will probably use their card to get cash in Europe.
Now we will have two bank accounts (Chase and Bank of America) and will close one after coming back to the US, as we will be leaving the country permanently. Which is the best to kept opened in the US and them use it sporadically when coming here for tourism and meetings: Chase or BofA?
Thanks!

gpm, if you haven't already done so, get a list of partner banks in Europe from Bank of America. I can name a few but this might be incomplete:

Barclay's (UK)
BNP Paribas (France)
Deustche Bank (Germany)

I don't know much about Chase, but B of A has locations in most states.

Thank you, P_M. I found the entire list on their website. Do I still pay the 1% fee using their partners?

Yes, but that's going to apply with just about everyone except Schwab.