clevelandbrown

PLMN,

You may have complications trying to get 630 euro from an ATM, as your daily limit is usually set quite lower, and many ATMs also have a lower limit. Solutions could be to do the withdrawal over two days, or have multiple cards (my wife and I each have a card for our joint account for just this purpose).

My bank asserts that I would have the same protections with a debit card as with a charge card, but I'm not sure I believe them. If someone overdrew my account, I apparently can get it restored with a phone call, but until that is actually done, I think I could not get cash from an ATM. Fortunately, I've not yet run into this problem.

Patrick

xyz, your point is sort of well taken, but I'm not so sure I'd agree to ALWAYS make even very small purchases with credit cards. Are you really going to dispute the purchase of those three postcards you bought at the corner store? of the bottle of water you got at the newstand? We all know that business owners do pay to accept each credit card transaction. Why be so mean to the average business owner that you make them pay and record even those tiny purchases that could just as easily be done with cash? I feel the same rule applies at home as abroad. I'd really feel cheap, tacky, and guilty for charging my $2.00 coffee on a credit card.

elaine

To Grandma
It was an expensive mistake, but we all make them from time to time, even when we think we should know better. I recently made a stupid mistake myself with a hotel's cancellation policy simply because I didn't read it properly, though it was a minor amount.
Chalk it up as a trip expense, and don't let it ruin your memories

Patrick, I do see your point, but I agree with Christina and others ever since eons ago I tried to cash some French Franc TCs in a French bank in Paris and paid a whopping fee, at least 10 years ago. I learned that for exchange rate purposes, having 'emergency' TCs in local currency did me no good, may have been worse than having them in $US.

For me, an 'emergency' would really be loss of my ATM or credit card, or being unable to use it temporarily, and that's why I would use my $US TCs to get some emergency cash, even at my hotel if worse comes to worse. I don't carry enough of them to pay my hotel bill or anything really expensive, it would just give me some cash for a day or two, IF that would be of any help.
I usually carry only about US$200 or so in TCs, and even then, only on a longer trip, I often don't bother for a short trip, which probably isn't wise.

crefloors

I use my ATM card for "going" money and my credit card for everything else. Having said that, I always take a couple 100.00 in travelers checks US$, for the worst case emergency. I just like to have different ways of getting cash and like the idea that I would be able to get some cash if something happened to any of my cards until it could be all sorted out. I have never had to use them so just buy groceries or what ever with them when i get back home. If I had a real emergency I wouldn't really care what the exchange rate was and I guess Im being "anal" but I just feel better having them.

Patrick

Elaine, now I'm really confused. Yes I agree that cashing a French or now euro travelers check in France may earn you a whopping fee, but are you telling me that you could have cashed a US dollar one for less? In addition to that same fee or more, you also would have lost even more from the US check for their exchange rate. My point is that either one may require a fee, but the euro one is far less likely to that a US dollar one, and it certainly will be cashed at the face value, not an arbitrary exchange rate picked out by the person cashing it.

Also since we're talking about emergencies I still say more "emergencies" are likely to happen at places where you can't get to a bank or the banks are closed. What I'm saying is that at least you are more likely to talk a business owner into taking a euro TC and getting face value for it than you are of getting anything even remotely fair from cashing a US dollar one.

I still can't see a single advantage of carrying US TC's to Europe over carrying euro ones. Of course, once again, I say it is easier and better not to take any TCs at all, but if you are going to take some, I think the local currency ones make a whole lot more sense than taking foreign currency ones.

xyz123

Patrick:

When a merchant slaps a credit card decal to his window, he jacks up the prices to cover his costs of taking credit cards so it's built into the price. I don't see it as being mean in the slightest...I see it as advantageous to the merchant as there is less cash to worry about, advantageous to me as there is less cash to worry about and most of all that I am paying for the merchant taking credit cards anyway.

I don't have the slightest problem in using a credit card to charge a $1.25 bottle of soda in the grocery or a €1 metro ride in Paris using the machines. If they take em, I use them, I try never to have to deal with cash.

I remember a time not too long ago when after ringing up my groceries, the clerk told me the cc machine was not working. I asked her to do it manually; she said they couldn't. She said surely I could afford $3.58 to pay the grocery bill. I calmly said, sorry I don't walk around with that kind of cash and walked out of the store. And can you believe, she gave me a dirty look!

Patrick

xyz, I stopped reading your post when you said that when a merchant puts a credit card sign in his window he jacks up the prices. I take personal offense to that statement. I owned a business for many years and never jacked a thing up above manufacturer's suggested retail. I took a smaller profit on any item sold via a credit card as I did when the customer paid cash. It's considered a cost of doing business, but that's no reason for customers to take advantage of the situation. And even being as wrong as you are, you should still realize that obviously the store owner is making less on every credit card sale than he is on a cash one. I have no reason to resent small business owners or to try to take advantage of them. Obviously you do.

If you really believe that prices are marked up by anyone taking credit cards, then I won't bother reading anything else you have to say about the subject, since you are clearly WRONG!!!

crefloors

As one who accepts credit cards in my business, I like Patrick do NOT jack up the price. Also, the percentage I pay is less when the card is present than if it's a phone order. Most of the credit card business I do is by phone and the higher percentage is something I have to live with for the convenience of my customers. You are NOT allowed to jack up the price. Of course, the credit card police don't come around and check on me so I guess someone could increase the price for a credit card purchase, but if you know for sure that this is true, you can report the merchant and they might loose that particular vender. The advantage for me to take credit cards is, a lot of the time people will spend more money if they can charge the purchase so bigger sale for me, and the cash is in my bank account quickly so I'm not out there chasing my money. Thats another reason some merchants give cash discounts. It's worth a small percentage to get the money and have a good cash flow. You can't run a business entirely on accounts receivable...that's the key word..receive!!! The botton line is, I don't think you find a lot of merchants upping the price for a credit card purchase, that's just a lot of "bunk".

crefloors

Patrick...regarding travelers checks..I would never use them for purchases, if I needed them I would go to a bank or the American Express office and cash them for local currency. Of course as you say, depending on the day etc. things might be closed but some of the hotels would cash them. The thing is..I've never had to "go there" and hope I never would and I'm not telling anyone else to do this. I know that many many people have traveled successfully, without incident, to may different places and ATM's and credit cards have been just fine. It's just what your own comfort level is. Also, and again, I do NOT know this from personal experience, but I have seen posted that many smaller merchants will not take travlers checks for payment no matter WHAT they are issued in..euros, dollars, pounds..I think it probably would have to do with the amount of time it takes for the money to actually get to their bank account, if in fact that it's true.

flanneruk

ON the issue of credit card use for small purchases:

As far as I'm aware, no European country has this bizarre law you have in the US that forces people who don't use credit cards to subsidise people who do (and I wonder which bank put lots of money into PACS to get that one through).

So merchants here are perfectly able to charge people for any extra costs their method of payment might create - or to refuse to accept cards for small value transactions.

If they don't do that, it's their commercial choice. By all means try to use Visa or MC, or debit cards, rather than Amex or Diners with small traders. But there really is no point avoiding using cards for a cup of coffee. The merchant's made his bed in a certain way, and he should lie in it.

Apart from anything else, cards are a much easier way of paying for small things like tube tickets or road and tunnel tolls.

Patrick

creflors, I'm not sure why you addressed your post to me as I agree with you. But my point was simply if you MUST take TCs, then I think they are better in the local currency than in US currency. What you said is an especially good case for that. If you take a 100 euro Am Ex TC to an Am Ex office in Paris you will get 100 euro. If you take a 100 US $ Am Ex TC to that same office you will not get the equivalent in euro -- they will give you a horrible exchange rate.

Once I tried to cash a $100 TC at an AM EX office in Geneva -- you know, the banking capital of the world? I wanted the US dollars as I was going home the next day. Guess what they'd give me? About $60. That's because they would only cash it in Swiss Francs and then convert it to $, taking two, not one huge conversion rate out of it. If I had a check for 100 francs, they'd have given me 100 francs. But otherwise they were keeping a lot of the face value for converting the check.

And I also agree that many merchants will not take any TCs, but I can assure you that you are better off cashing a local currency one there if they do accept them than cashing one in a foreign currency.

I stand by my previous statement. I still do not see a single reason why US TCs would be better than euro TCs in Europe. And remember, if you don't want them left over, just put the balance towards your hotel room at full value (that's better than the extra 1% that even your credit card will charge you).

Grandma

Hey guys... I dropped out of this thread back in February! It's "amaes" who posted on 9/22 who needs advice -

PLMN

Where I live, retailers that don't want to take Credit Cards usually put up a sign that they will not take cards for purchases under a certain amount. Usually nothing under $10.

I do know that Limoservicerome.com had me give them my credit card number to make my reservation and I thought that was how I was going to pay for the ride. However, upon further reading and investigation it is stated that the prices quoted are for CASH payment. Hmmm.

platzman

Instead of traveler's checks (or USD)for emergency cash needs, why not just withdraw some extra local currency from the ATM upon arrival. Take a few euro 50 bills and just tuck them away somewhere safe. Its ready cash, no need to exchange it, no fees or poor exchange rate.
Then use this emergency stash the last day of your trip for paying off the last hotel bill.

WillTravel

That's fine, unless your ATM card doesn't work on arrival. Which happened to me. Luckily I had brought foreign currency and my son also had an ATM card (which drew from my account). The reason my ATM card didn't work - for some unknown reason and unknown to me, the bank had put a limit of $100 Canadian/day on the card, and I was trying to withdraw larger sums. There was no such limit on my son's card. The bank apologized, but this could have been a disaster. I wasn't aware of the $100 limit - all I knew was that my card did not work.

platzman

So it seems you did just fine without TCs. OK, I'll admit we brought about 60 euro from the last trip. Plus $50 apiece mainly for potential airport expenses, but which could be exchanged as a last resort.
We each carried a debit and credit card from different banks, so we had 4 ways of accessing money if it came to that.

sundown

WillTravel--Were you surprised the limit was $100 or that there was a limit at all? Every ATM/debit card I've heard of has some daily limit. It keeps guys with guns from walking up behind you at the ATM machine and taking every penny in your account. You still can make purchases with the card even though you've reached the daily cash limit (at least you can with mine--it's a Visa so I assume that's pretty standard).

I'm glad your trip wasn't disrupted but it was rather risky to travel with both you and your son having only cards that draw on the same account. What if one of you had lost his card and the bank canceled both cards instead of just the one you'd lost? (Or, in the case of my debit card if the bank's network goes down the daily limit per card becomes the daily limit per account--meaning your son would have been out of locked out until the next day, too.) A regular credit card would have given you some backup in such an event. The charges would probably have been much worse than the debit card but at least you could have used it to get cash in an emergency.

WillTravel

Oh I did have several credit cards as well, sundown . I can't remember if they were set up to get cash, though.

WillTravel

I expected the limit to be $400/day - that's what everyone else in our family had. As I said, no explanation from the bank as to why that happened.

sundown

Good, sounds like you had it well covered!
A couple years back my debit card's network had some big-time problems--going down for hours at a time several times a week. I wasn't out of the country but it really made me think about the need to always have a backup plan.