Visa/Cash/Tvl Checks
 

In making our hotel reservations and in a couple of posts I notice that cash or travelers checks seems to be the desired method of payment. I have always been under the impression that the best rate of exchange is obtained by using a credit card as much as possible. Is this not true in Turkey? Will I have to carry a lot of cash and travelers checks? I get the impression that very few hotels, restaurants, etc, will take credit cards. We want to get the best rate of exchange but don't want to be constantly looking for a bank to exchange $. Recommendations?

If they won't take credit cards (why not?), then the best method of getting cash and the best rate of exchange in a foreign country is to use an ATM. <BR><BR>What has been the experience of recent travellers to Turkey about credit cards and ATMs?

We always try to use either a credit card or our ATM card when we travel. However we did have problems in Turkey in September 2000. We were in Fethiye and Kalkan. Kalkan had only 1 ATM machine and it wasn't on the Plus system. Kas, the next town over, had 3 ATMs, and supposedly one of them was on Plus, but it didn't work for us. Luckily we had brought some US cash (we're Canadian). Fethiye is much bigger and they had several banks, but we had to search to find one that was on the Plus system. Next time I'd make sure I had a card on Plus and Cirrus. <BR><BR>The Brits who were travelling didn't seem to have the same problem as us. It made for a few anxious moments.

I normally never carry traveler's checks and deal strictly with credit cards and ATM's. However, I made an exception traveling in Turkey. Two hotels that we prebooked stated they would give us a 10% discount for cash. Both of those rates were already quoted in US dollars, so we took some US traveler's checks and used them that way. We also were given a 10% discount on an expensive hot-air-balloon excursion in Cappodocia for paying with traveler's checks. Again this had been stated in the initial reservation.

Tvl checks give a good rate of exchange. And are safer than carrying cash. In fact (this is in London) the Am. Express office gave me just about the same rate of exchange as my Mastercard exchange rate that I used to pay for the hotel.<BR>Beware that many banks charge x amount of dollars or a percentage of the transaction per transaction for ATM use. Some of those transaction fees can negate any advantage of the decent exchange rate an ATM may provide. Am. Express tvl. checks are free to many of us at our banks.<BR>Check all this out at your bank before deciding which way to go. M.

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I've often thought that smaller hotels in Europe might do cash to save the Visa transaction fee. 2 or 3 percent can add up after awhile. Besides, if the people still come to your hotel, why should you mess with Visa.<BR><BR>I know of at least one restaurant in Indiana that doesn't take credit cards. The owner told me that people still come, so he doesn't pay Visa fees.<BR><BR>I've also wondered if some of the European hotels want cash because it's easier to hide. With such high tax rates, cash is an easier way to skim a little off the top.

We had no problem with ATMs although we were in relatively larger centres (Marmaris, Istanbul, Urgup). We use the less common plus system and still found lots of ATMs. A couple of times, the ATMs were limiting the amount of the transaction to 100M due to economic problems and the dropping lira.<BR><BR>We did have a major nightmare with travellers' cheques in Canadian $. No one would take them. We eventually changed them at the bank for American $ at a hefty fee.<BR><BR>Also, we found that many merchants in Turkey will charge between 3 and 9% for use of a credit card. We got it waived on one occasion by threatening to tell Visa, but another place would not budge (and we really wanted the item!).<BR><BR>I would recommend taking some American cash (you will need it for the visa if you are from a country that requires it) and travellers' cheques in US$ and use an ATM as much as possible.