Tips to use ATM and CC aboard

Get ENGOUGH amount for one currency, such as Euro. Do a rough calculation on what you may need so you would know about how much to withdraw. Pay big purchases by credit card - eventhough you may have to pay 3% currency conversion fee (shows up on your statement as separate charges) - you get the PROTECTION on your purchases should something goes wrong and you only discover it AFTER your return. Using cash you have NO protection and can only chalk it to your bad luck. Some credit unions and small banks credit cards only charge 1% conversion but all the majors, such as Citi, Chase, BofA, MBNA, AMEX, all charge 3% now. Just factor that into the overall expenses. Insist the merchants to charge you in LOCAL CURRENCY, DO NOT ACCEPT USD charges aboard - as the bank will convert the USD back to local currency and then back to USD - and you wind up paying 6 or 7% higher than only 3% conversion fee. This is a big trap for many people.

Your bank will charge 2 types of fees for ATM withdrawal -

1) is the International withdrawal fee - usually is $5.00 per withdrawal and will show separately on your bank statement.

2) is the currency conversion fee (between 1% to 3%, hidden in the exchange rate)

Therefore if you made many withdrawals you will be hit by the $5.00 each time. Do your math carefully.

If your bank is BankofAmerica - it has its own ATM network in many countries that if you withdraw cash from the member banks ATM, BofA does not charge you the $5.00 fee. In Europe, BNP in France, Barclay in UK are member banks. Try to get your money from these 2 banks ATM to avoid the $5.00 per withdrawal fee.
(BofA also has member banks in Canada, Mexico and Australia/NZ)

For currency conversion you can check these sites for almost real time rates:

http://www.oanda.com/
http://www.xe.com/ucc/

For ATM locations (Visa logo)
http://visa.via.infonow.net/locator/global/jsp/SearchPage.jsp

Mastercard logo
http://www.mastercard.com/us/personal/en/cardholderservices/atmlocations/index.html

Have a wonderful trip, though 20days are quite long to follow tour group.

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• 谢谢你，学到不少知识。 -打字难- ♀ (0 bytes) () 06/19/2006 postreply 21:03:16