ssachida

Hi All,
We (my parents and I) will be going to Italy in November. We'll be arriving in Venice and have reserved an apartment there. Only problem is that we need to pay in cash (presumably for all 4 nights), on arrival. Should I just take the euros from here? or bump up my ATM allowance and withdraw the money there? If the latter, where can I find an ATM as soon as I land?

PS: love this board, I've been reading it for weeks. This is the only question I've thought of that doesn't seem to be answered already. If I'm repeating someone else's question, I apologise.

janis

I'd just bump up the daily limits -- between you and you folks you should be able to easily withdraw enough for your apartment.

(I run into this issue now and then and I've always been able to work it out w/ the landlord or rental agency to have a couple of days to get enough cash together. But if your agency demands cash immediately - then just raise your limits)

travelbunny

..I'd get a bring along a money order (in euros) for the hotel. safe and minimal expense.

Melissajoy

ssachida, make sure your group has at least 3 ATM cards just to be safe, and notify your bank before you leave that you'll be using the ATM cards in Italy.

We had three cards with us. One stopped working for some mysterious reason after only 2 days. The second card only had a daily limit of 250 euros, and this money was for our whole family! And the third card was my son's and he didn't have much money in his account. We were short of cash the whole trip but we had credit cards. It was annoying to be short of cash. Also my ATM card didn't work in some machines.

I found out just before I left, and it was too late to get it, that AAA has some kind of pre-paid card that you can buy that is sort of like an ATM card but it is pre-paid. I would bring some of those with me next time.

NYCFoodSnob

<i>&quot;Should I just take the euros from here?</i>

I think &quot;yes&quot; because this is the safest and most respectable solution. There are several fairly recent threads on this very dilemma. Try a search.

Even if you get your ATM limit increased, this will have no effect on the ATM limits in Venice. The majority of ATM's in Venice will not provide more than 300 Euro per transaction. By the time you incur all the foreign ATM fees (provided your bank charges any), it would actually be more cost-effective to purchase this amount (cost of rental) where you live.

If you ask the owner/agent to delay payment, it is your responsibility to get the money owed to them. This could turn out to be inconvenient and time-consuming and take away from seeing and having more fun. If more people actually did the math, I think they'd find the savings hardly worth the hassles.

Janeyre

If you arrive via plane at the Marco Polo airport, there is an ATM machine at the end of the airport, near the post office. That was our first stop when we arrived in Venice a few weeks ago after a long flight and all three of us withdrew the max. amount we could (varied between 250-350 euros each). I did have about 80 euros in my pocket from a previous trip-that &quot;insurance&quot; felt good! We, too, paid cash for our hotel in Venice and finding other ATM's in Venice was no problem. Do have backups. I made sure I knew my PIN number for my credit card in case our ATM cards didn't work so at least I could get a cash advance.

Do pay with your purchases/hotels with your charge card whenever possible. Better exchange rate and for me, no fees with purchases. I used my ATM card for a couple of purchases in France two years ago (to test it out) and small transaction fees were attached to each purchase. Check with your bank/local American Express office for their fees for euros. You may want to take some euros with you for that peace of mind in case the airport ATM isn't working, and you need cash for the bus or water transportation. FYI, we ended up taking a bus to P.Roma-3euro-15 minutes (luggage was stored under the bus-easy) and a vap. to the closest stop to our hotel (5euro). Have a wonderful time in Venice. We were also in Venice in November of 2003-no rain but cold. Bring scarf/mittens/cap.

clevelandbrown

I believe for most people, the most cost-effective way to get foreign currency is through an ATM at your destination, provided you have made the effort to ally yourself with a bank that doesn't add its own cut to the 1% fee charged by the ATM network. ATMs in Europe do not charge the transaction fee that is common in the US.

Its correct that the individual machines have a daily limit; you can circumvent this by going to another machine. If all three of you have ATM cards, getting enough cash to pre-pay the apartment should be no problem, although when my wife and I did this we ended up with a wad of 20E bills that would have choked a horse; I guess the machines we used were out of larger bills.

One problem with ATMs is that your daily limit is in dollars, and you don't know the actual exchange rate at the instant you make a withdrawal, and many machines seem to deal with increments of 20 or 50 Euros, so your daily limit of, say, $500 may work out to be 350 Euros.

I am getting pickier and pickier as I age, and now when I look for an apartment, I demand a washer/dryer, and acceptance of credit cards. Next year I may add an elevator to the list.

ira

Hi ss,

I suggest you use your ATM card.

You could ask your bank to raise your daily limit for a set time period, during which you can withdraw the money you need.

Keep in mind that each ATM has a limit per transaction (about 300E), so that if you need 1500E you would have to withdraw 300E five times. Even then, the machine could run out of money.

It is also a good idea to have separate cards, even if they are on the same account.

Finally, if your bank charges more than $1.50 per transaction ask them to lower the fee or find another bank. My little, local bank charges 75 cts.

There are also ATMs at the train station.

You can look up the locations of ATMs by going to the website of your network.

suze

I'm usually a fan of ATM, but for your particular situation I'd suggest a combination of methods...

First, Can you pay for the apartment with a money order or travelers checks (sometimes this is OK) or does it need to be cash-cash?

I would order a good amount of Euro ahead from your own bank and split them between 3 people to carry over.

Back this up ATM cards, 1 each person if possible. I've not arrived Venice by plane, but pretty much all major airports have ATM machines these days.

For the poster who mentioned pre-pair travel cards (rumor has it) read the fine print. I saw another thread on Fodors discussing the incredibly high fees to use these and that they weren't accepted in many places.

Grasshopper

Sometimes it doesn't matter if the bank raises your daily limit, the machine you use can still have a maximum withdrawl amount. This happened to me in Rome when I needed to pay cash for an apt. The ATM at the airport had a max. of 200 euro. And my second card wasn't working that day. After stopping at a second machine on the way to the apt. I still didn't have enough cash.

Patrick

Quite a lot this year in Italy we found the ATMs offering different amounts of money up to 250 euro. When I clicked &quot;another amount&quot; and entered anything larger than that, the machine usually said that exceeded the limit. That limit is apparently set by most banks as we ran into it frequently when we were trying to withdraw larger quantities for rent as you mention, and our limit is considerably larger than that! Oddly enough, once I took their stated maximum of 250 and tried again and instantly got another 250 from the same machine on the same card, so who knows what will happen.

ssachida

Hi all,
Thanks for all the feedback. I haven't checked on my bank's (Bank One) exchange rate or ATM policy abroad, but if its reasonable, I think we 'll take abt 600 euros with us in cash and take the ATM and credit cards that everyone suggests. I need to pay 500 euros for the apt, so the extra 100 gives us a buffer for that day. If my rental agency will accept the money order, then sounds like an excellent idea too, at least its less bulky than cash. Thanks a ton folks.

Andre

Patrick,

Many banks deliberately set the per transaction limits at their ATMs quite low to maximize the transaction fees they collect for each withdrawal... They're only too happy to oblige should you make a second withdrawal from the same machine ;-)

These per transaction limits have absolutely nothing to do with your card's limit.

In France, where I gather you are right now, avoid Soci&eacute;t&eacute; G&eacute;n&eacute;rale ATMs for this reason and instead use BNP or Credit Lyonnais.

Hope this helps,
Andre

Rick

The hotel we stayed at in Venice last year would accept Trav. Checks in euros so those I bought from AAA before leaving so I didn't have to worry about putting together 300 euros just for the hotel. You might ask if your appartment management will accept this alternative, some will. The apartment we are staying at in Montepulciano in October will accept TC's.

janis

I'm not sure what Andre means. I have never been assessed an ATM transaction fee by a bank in Europe. The only fee is the $1.50 my own bank charges for out of system ATMs. Most US banks charge $1 to $2 but some don't charge anything.

There are some independent, stand-alone ATMs that do charge a fee - but I have never had a bank ATM assess a fee.

Melissajoy

One problem to work around: the ATMs near the very busy San Marco sqare were always out of money, every single time we tried them, due to the crowds in this area!