JaneB

We just returned from a month-long trip to Russia and 5 former Russian countries. The USAA bank ATM cards would not work when we arrived in St Petersburg. After 2 days of searching for an ATM that would "work", I called USAA on my Cingular cell phone @ $4.95 per minute to find out why (Land phones only gave busy signals) and was told that this is USAA policy.

And yes, I had called USAA prior to leaving to tell them where we would be traveling. No mention was made that their ATM cards would not work there. The USAA "Manager" I just talked with to complain about this did not know of the policy either.

Fortunately, we carried lots of cash out of habit--we traveled long before ATM's or credit cards!

Budman

What about their credit cards?

JaneB

We didn't try to use them--used Citibank credit card

Dukey

Thanks for the warning. I'm a USAA member and somehow this doesn't surprise me

JaneB

Budman, I DID use USAA credit card to make advance reservations for St P, Tallin, Riga, Kaliningrad, Minsk and Kiev hotels.

Budman

Thanks. I just wondered if there were past concerns with fraud using the ATM's or there was a cirrus/plus network problem.

teatravel

Both my USAA ATM and MC were accepted in Armenia, Azerbaijan & Georgia. The limit for ATM is $600 or equivalence per withdfrawal.

My son just spent 2 months traveling all over Easter European countries, and never had them rejected. USAA allows 10 free ATM withdrawals per statement cycle, $2.00 each after that.

What surprised my son was the ATM he used in Montenegro only gave out €s, and merchants also accept €s.

Christina

That wouldn't have surprised him if he had read some tourism information ahead of time, as the euro is the official currency of Montenegro.

LoveItaly

Hi JaneB, this is why I always carry 2 ATM cards for two different checking accounts from two different financial institutions. Are you going to talk to USAA about this? Not good service IMHO which surprised me as I have always had good service from USAA, but obviously you didn't.

JaneB

Yes, Love. I talked with them today--they apologized profusely--and have already reimbursed me with a deposit in our account for my cell phone call from St P to them. The manager kept insisting that an ATM for our savings account could never be used at a foreign ATM. I informed her that we HAVE already used it in China, India, Thailand, Chile, and Argentina. She is going to email with a complete explanation of their ATM usage rules.
Jane

djkbooks

The tour guides on our river cruise told us that ATM transactions are often unsuccessful for a variety of reasons - phone lines aren't working (a common occurrence with credit card transactions also), the ATM is out of cash or just does not have bills in denominations required for the amount you entered (for example you entered 290 in hopes of getting some smaller bills and it has only hundreds), your bank is offline for overnight processing.

So even if your card "should" work in Russia, you may just have to keep trying. We were lucky the one time we tried, but many others on our cruise were not. Some, but not all, had success later.

FainaAgain

Oh, so it's savings account ATM, not checking? There is a difference between those 2, just don't know what and why.

janisj

Now you say it is an ATM card linked to your checking account. That is likely the problem. Some people say they have used a savings acct. ATM, but in general the advice for traveling to Europe is always to make sure the card is linked to a checking acct.

FainaAgain

There is a better explanation of ATMs and their connection to checking and savings accounts in this post:

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34867495

LoveItaly

Hi JaneB, I know in Italy one can only access their money via ATM's from ones checking account. But USAA should have told you that when you called to advise them you would be using your card in Russia etc. Guess that only applies to Europe since you did not have any problems in Asia and SA. Thanks for posting back JaneB.

JaneB

We had 2 USAA ATM cards--one linked to a savings account and one linked to a checking account. Both gave some sort of error message when we tried them in St P--also in several other countries when we "tested" to see if they would work. My husband also had an ATM card for a small local bank--and it worked like a charm in EVERY country. Unfortunately, we did not have a lot of cash in this bank since we use USAA banking for our travels--up to now!
Jane