[Noisebridge-discuss] Best strategy and currency for foreign travel..

mark burdett mfburdett at gmail.com
Mon Jan 25 04:49:29 UTC 2010


Check on the foreign transaction fees for your credit/debit cards.
I've read that a couple banks' credit cards eat the foreign
transaction fee for you, but I'm not lucky enough to have one of
these.  My card has a 1% foreign transaction fee, but also gives me 1%
cash back on purchases, so I don't worry too much about it.

Also of course find out the foreign ATM withdrawal fees for your ATM
cards.  My card has a flat $1 fee for withdrawals, so if I am
withdrawing the maximum amount this is not too bad. If your bank has
high foreign ATM withdrawal fees, don't withdraw small amounts
(especially if you're in a country where ATMs let you withdraw as
little as $2 :) or find a better bank account for overseas
withdrawals.

Here in the Philippines, after looking at my bank statements, I can
see that I get slightly different currency conversion rates from
different banks' ATMs and on different days, but given that the ATM
machines don't tell you what the conversion rate is, it's hopefully
not worth stressing about..

--mark

On Sun, Jan 24, 2010 at 6:54 PM, Martin Bogomolni <martinbogo at gmail.com> wrote:
> Over the next year, I'm going to be traveling a lot more
> internationally than I have in a long time.   It's gotten me thinking
> about how to handle money, and what modern tech has done to how
> 'things are done.'
>
> It used to be that a person would get traveler's checks, or perhaps
> withdraw money (and incur a buy/sell loss) in the currency of the
> target country.    Today we have debit cards, credit cards, paypal,
> and access to money in all sorts of forms worldwide.
>
> So, what do you do when you travel?  What's the current "smart
> strategem" when traveling to get the best bang for the buck, and still
> travel safe and be prepared?
>
> -Martin
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