Here is another explanation for the OP:

What you see on Oanda is "wholesale" price

What you see in a bank is "retail" price

That's true, Dayenu. And from my experience, it seems that AMEX charged a much larger spread than my local bank.

trafaelwyr,

You question WAS answered early on. Unfortunately, there are some who feel strongly that unless you subscribe to their way, or to a way that many do, that you must be very wrong, and surely must have learned your lesson!!

Passing on information is great and we all appreciate it. IMO, it should then be left for the person asking, to make their own decision on what is best for them, and only to them!

I'm sure you will find, and do, what you feel will work best for you.

Enjoy your planning...

Joan

Here is a recent article on this subject.

http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/...er=rss&emc=rss

@sap--love your reasoning and I believe you are dead on.

<i>IMO, it should then be left for the person asking, to make their own decision on what is best for them, and only to them! </i>

Sort of, I guess. But there are also situations where there is a right and a wrong answer.

For example: "Should one buy currency at US retail prices in an attempt to hedge their currency risk, or as any sort of investment?" The only correct answer is no. There isn't any debate, it is a bad idea and there are any number of better ways to hedge your risk or try to make money from the fx market.

If some seem intransigent when saying this, it is because they are trying to be unambiguous and prevent any misunderstanding, lest anyone stumbling upon this thread think it a good idea. Tossing it up as personal preference is not helpful. People can continue to do what they want to do, but it doesn't mean it isn't the wrong thing to do.

Just got back from the Netherlans & Belgium. We always use two cards in Europe:

ATM from my credit union - a 1% overseas surcharge with no added fees. Seemed to run around $1.23-1.24 May 25-June 1.

Captial One credit card - the best deal - no surcharge at all overseas. Ran between $1.22 and $1.23 during the same time. We used it everywhere we could.

IMHO - NEVER use an exchange kiosk or bank. The spreads seem to run well over 10%. This can add hundreds of dollars to your trip.

We always save about 100E from each trip to start the next trip. That gets us to our hotel in case there is an ATM or credit card problem at the airport. We also buy any train tickets with that great credit card online in advance, if possible.

But as a precaution, we carry a couple of extra ATM and credit cards (with higher surcharges) as backups.

SS

One more thing...when you call Capital One, you should specifically ask for the card with no overseas surcharge. I got mine a couple of years ago, and the person on the line did not know it existed and had to put me on hold to find out about it.

I think it had a really high interest rate, but that was irrelevant to me, since I only use it on Europe trips and pay it off as soon as I get home.

SS

I read the article cited by Greg. It had one piece of misinformation: that credit union debit/ATM cards are less widely usable. I haven't found this to be true. My credit union ATM/debit cards are all I use abroad. I use them a lot because they charge only the 1% over bank rates.

It depends on what network your credit union belongs to.

The only places my cards didn't work were (1) a machine in a French post office and (2) a non-staffed gas station in Sicily. But both of those cases were a chip-and-pin problem, nothing to do the card issuer or the network to which it belongs. Those same cards worked all the rest of the time.