WE are traveling to Paris and Italy in June for a month. We are trying to decide the best way to get money abroad. Have you heard or had experience with the American Express Travel Card?

if you could predict to the euro or the pound what your expenses would be, the travel funds cards would be good to excellent.

I don't think that is possible however.
Therefore you need to be able to get to your money inexpensively and reliably.

The best way is to use an ATM card for access to a checking account and to use aw credit card for major purchases.

I have done this for years with good results. The checking account is flexible in that I can draw out what I need. It has one less good angle: I can only withdraw twice off net before I pay a small fee per transaction.
(I got that one beat this year; we are going at the end of the month and I have a second checkig account with emergency funds in it. Both banks allow 2 free off net transactions per month)

I have a credit card through MBNA that does not charge an extra percentage for foreign transactions. I use that for all major purchases like hotels, train tickets, and restaurant meals.

The good part is that for these transactions, most of us who use this method pay the wholesale bank rate of exchange plus the usual Visa or MC 1% add on for the conversion.

I don't object to the 1% charge. What I objectd to is the extra 2% some banks add on for essentially no service provided and no value added.

Just don't do what one friend of mine did. Despite his erudition (college prof) he did not know the differences among credit cards, debit cards, and ATM cards. He used his credit card for ALL financial transactions, even in ATM machines. When he got socked with hefty cash advance fees he blamed me for telling him to use his ATM card.
Turned out he did not even have one.

our credit union atm cards charge only the usual visa/mastercard 1% conversion fee for atm withdrawals....i use both in italy and france...its the easiest...take more than one card however...

Hi ginn,

The Travel Card is essentially an ATM card. You give AMEX your money and they give it back to you.

You are better off with an ATM card.

Looks like it has very high fees. $15 for geting the card intially, and $5 for every recharge.

I agree that the ATM is best, and the Visa debit card usually charges lower fees than a credit card. If your bank happens to be Bank of America, be sure to use ATM's owned by BNP Paribas in France. They have an agreement with this bank that B of A customers will pay no fees and get a very good exchange rate on ATM transactions. If you don't use B of A, call you bank and find out if they have any such arrangements with European banks.

Thanks to rkkwan for making the point I neglected to make. You do pay for it.
In my several trips I find that I cannot beat using an ATM card for access to my checking account funds.

I can see having such a card if managing money is an issue.

For example, one friend of mine wanted the European trip to be a learning experience and well as a fun trip. He gave his two daughters that kind of a card so that they would have some cash on hand for individual purchases. When they had spent it all, a renegotiation phase was to kick in. Well, one daughter was a tight wad and did not spend hers while the other one blew hers in about a day.
The thrifty daughter had to be encouraged to use it up so that there would not be an unspent residual.
I understand that those unspent residuals are gold mines for the issuing company.
Not only do you pay a fee for the card, but the little bits here and there over hundreds of thousands of cards add up to a lot of money in the possession of the issuing agency.

It is like a phone card bought overseas. How many of us use it up totally. I have little pieces of national phone cards lying around with perhaps less than 1€ of time on them.
(US call). My French one actually expired with value remaining. I presume the seller pocketed the money becauses no one sent me a refund.

What unspent residuals..you can use it at home and withdraw all the money or use it for purchases.

That's what I was going to say -- unless AMEX has some very strange rule that you can only use the prepaid card in Europe (which I doubt), you would just go to an ATM near home after getting back and withdraw whatever you had left in the account. I don't think it's such a great lesson in fiscal responsbility to force that thrifty child to use up money buying things she didn't even need or want. She should have been allowed to save the difference after getting home. No wonder people can't manage money if this is the kind of advice they get.

It is NOT like a foreign phone card that can only be used in that country. AMEX's web site says you can use it at ATMs anywhere in the world.

AAA now has a similar product, which is really a VISA card, and you can use that anywhere in the world at any ATM (in the usual networks). It is also free for AAA members. I think I'll try getting one of those sometime as a backup, since I'd get it free.

It might also be a good idea for a gift to honeymooners, or to fund "pocket money" for a student on an exchange.

That's what I was going to say -- unless AMEX has some very strange rule that you can only use the prepaid card in Europe (which I doubt), you would just go to an ATM near home after getting back and withdraw whatever you had left in the account. I don't think it's such a great lesson in fiscal responsbility to force that thrifty child to use up money buying things she didn't even need or want. She should have been allowed to save the difference after getting home. This may not have been a good lesson if her parent didn't understand money very well or the use of ATM cards.

It isn't like a foreign phone card that can only be used in that country. I just checked AMEX's web site and it says you can use it at ATMs anywhere in the world. AMEX has some odd condition where you can buy it in a foreign currency (like GBP or euros), but does say you can use it anywhere and it converts from your native currency to that like any ATM card would. I suspect that feature is for folks who have trouble with exchange rates and want to say they have 300 GBP worth of charging because they can't figure out what amount of card to buy in USD. Internally to financial entities, it doesn't matter, it's just converted.

AAA now has a similar product, which is really a VISA card, and you can use that anywhere in the world at any ATM (in the usual networks). It is also free for AAA members. I think I'll try getting one of those sometime as a backup, since I'd get it free. If AMEX does require you to use it abroad if you have, for some reason, bought it in euro, I would not use their product.

I gave a pre-paid charge card to my nephew couple of years ago when he and few of his buddies went to Europe. It was a high school graduation gift. He didn't have any CCs at that time, and it worked beautifully for him. Couple of times they wanted to check in to a nicer place and his pre-paid VISA worked great as a deposit. They would pay cash when checking-out and the hotel did put a hold for a certain amount, but after few days the hold would disappear. Anyway, to make a long story longer he came back with about $500 (out of 1000), and he kept on using it till it ran out. He bought some new clothes before leaving for college. When it came down to the last few dollars he was able to call, find out how much was left, tell the store clerk to charge that amount and pay the difference in cash. No problems.
He actually told me that the experience with the CC tought him a lesson. Some of his buddies only had cash, and they blew it very quickly. Not having cash in his pocket stopped him from making some stupid impulse buys at street markets like some of his buddies. The card came with a pin, so it was also a ATM card.

The $15 or whatever it did cost me to set it up at that time was money well spent.