Using ATMs and Credit Cards in Thailand

[brett]

We have never had any issue buying or selling baht in Canada. Never. In fact, the larger problem is often finding larger denominations at the currency store.

We typically go for several months at a time. We take $1200-1500 with us and exchange it there because the exchange rates are much better than they are at home. Usually 100 bills but we also take some smaller bills in case we need money for the last day and do not want to change a 100.

After that we do large cash ATM withdrawals. As large as the ATM will allow-different Thai banks seem to have differing cash limits. Often 20,000 baht-about $625USD. We also use our credit card whenever we can as long as there is no significant surcharge.

We have never had our credit card hacked after any international trip-Asia, Europe, Africa, South/Central America, OZ. We travel frequently. The only place we have had our card(s) compromised is right here in North America. Several times. We are fairly careful. Our practice is never to let a credit card our of our line of sight...at home or while travelling. Whenever possible we try to find ATM's that are inside or at least attached to a bank vs the bank ATM's sitting outside convenience stores as they are in Thailand and some other countries.

There are bank ATM machines in BKK airport. As I recall there are also two bank branches. Not sure what hours they keep. Many flights from NA arrive at or around midnight.

[BeachOrCity]

Quote:

Originally Posted by brett We have never had any issue buying or selling baht in Canada. Never. In fact, the larger problem is often finding larger denominations at the currency store. We typically go for several months at a time. We take $1200-1500 with us and exchange it there because the exchange rates are much better than they are at home. Usually 100 bills but we also take some smaller bills in case we need money for the last day and do not want to change a 100. After that we do large cash ATM withdrawals. As large as the ATM will allow-different Thai banks seem to have differing cash limits. Often 20,000 baht-about $625USD. We also use our credit card whenever we can as long as there is no significant surcharge. We have never had our credit card hacked after any international trip-Asia, Europe, Africa, South/Central America, OZ. We travel frequently. The only place we have had our card(s) compromised is right here in North America. Several times. We are fairly careful. Our practice is never to let a credit card our of our line of sight...at home or while travelling. Whenever possible we try to find ATM's that are inside or at least attached to a bank vs the bank ATM's sitting outside convenience stores as they are in Thailand and some other countries. There are bank ATM machines in BKK airport. As I recall there are also two bank branches. Not sure what hours they keep. Many flights from NA arrive at or around midnight.

My bad, I had the problem in Thailand but it was with Cambodian and Vietnamese left over currency.

[YVRRocketSurgery]

We like having some leftover currency too because we usually repeat destinations we enjoyed. One problem though, is if a country updates their currency. We had some GBP notes that were no longer "valid" and we had to go to a bank while in London to get them exchanged to the current notes. We went to an HSBC because we have an old account with them but we didn't bring our bank card. They were pretty friendly about it but they seemed to indicate less enthusiasm if we weren't HSBC customers. Still took about 30 minutes though.

I hate exchanging "exotic" currency at home versus abroad because the exchange rates are usually worse.

[braumeister]

Quote:

Originally Posted by YVRRocketSurgery We had some GBP notes that were no longer "valid" and we had to go to a bank while in London to get them exchanged to the current notes. We went to an HSBC because we have an old account with them but we didn't bring our bank card. They were pretty friendly about it but they seemed to indicate less enthusiasm if we weren't HSBC customers .

They didn't have any choice. The Bank of England stands behind all their currency, no matter how old it is.

Funny story: A couple of years ago I found five or six old £1 notes in a forgotten drawer and took them into a bank over there to exchange for pound coins. It was kind of funny, because the young tellers had never seen a pound note and didn't know what to do. I stood there grinning while one of them made about five phone calls to supervisors and finally got permission to exchange them. But then he didn't know how to document it and finally just reached into his own pocket and handed me the coins. Guess he kept the bills as a souvenir.

[triangle]

I was in Thailand last week. Both the Siam Commercial Bank and Kasikorn Thai Bank charged 220 bhat (~$7.25) per ATM withdrawal but also allowed a fairly high limit of 20K bhat (~$660). Though I don't like to withdraw and carry that much cash at one time so the fees are still an issue.

As others have stated you will typically find 3 different cash exchange rates, the highest for $100 and $50 notes, a middle rate for $20 notes, and a much lower rate for $10/$5/$1 notes. For example one day last week a kiosk inside a shopping mall offered 29.76 THB/USD for $100 bills and 29.44 THB/USD for $20 bill, so about 1% lower rate for twenty dollar bills. A kiosk up the street was much better, offering 30.0x for $100 bills.

I find that credit cards work great throughout Asia when physically present (i.e. the terminal can read the chip card), but can potentially become a nightmare when buying something online. I tried to make a booking on AirBnb and could not complete the transaction because AirBnb requires that Visa send a one time password to your phone but since traveling outside phone coverage and using a foreign SIM there was no way to receive the code and validate the transaction. To top things off the card was then locked, requiring a phone call to rectify (letting the CC company know about travel plans before hand made no difference). Another time I needed to top up my mobile data plan and tried to pay ~$3 via credit card and it was denied but thankfully it did not lock the card.

[flyingaway]

Just came back from Thailand today and have been there many times. I used credit cards to book hotels online, but never used them inside Thailand. The hotel I stayed this time welcomes credit cards with 3% surcharge. ATM machines are everywhere with fees. I always bring cash and exchange it in town. ATM cards are my backups. The rate at the airports are the worst. Thailand is extremely safe and I never worried about my money. Almost every hotels that I stayed have a safety box in room.

Just want to mention, over the last year, dollars lost about 10% of its value against Thai bath.

[sengsational]

Quote:

Originally Posted by braumeister That's one of my fun little quirks. I love to be able to show up with a bit of money, usually just about enough for a taxi from the airport. I keep it with my passport, and currently have cash from the Euro zone, Canada, Switzerland, the UK, Norway, Czechia, Sweden, Iceland, Chile, and the Falklands. I doubt I'll have much use for the Falklands money, but it's just a £5 note and it looks pretty cool.

Some of the foreign money is pretty cool. I've got a little bag of leftover foreign coins and bills. If I ever get around to building my taproom, I think I'll put the currency on the bar and pour acrylic over it.

[explanade]

Quote:

Originally Posted by triangle I was in Thailand last week. Both the Siam Commercial Bank and Kasikorn Thai Bank charged 220 bhat (~$7.25) per ATM withdrawal but also allowed a fairly high limit of 20K bhat (~$660). Though I don't like to withdraw and carry that much cash at one time so the fees are still an issue. As others have stated you will typically find 3 different cash exchange rates, the highest for $100 and $50 notes, a middle rate for $20 notes, and a much lower rate for $10/$5/$1 notes. For example one day last week a kiosk inside a shopping mall offered 29.76 THB/USD for $100 bills and 29.44 THB/USD for $20 bill, so about 1% lower rate for twenty dollar bills. A kiosk up the street was much better, offering 30.0x for $100 bills. I find that credit cards work great throughout Asia when physically present (i.e. the terminal can read the chip card), but can potentially become a nightmare when buying something online. I tried to make a booking on AirBnb and could not complete the transaction because AirBnb requires that Visa send a one time password to your phone but since traveling outside phone coverage and using a foreign SIM there was no way to receive the code and validate the transaction. To top things off the card was then locked, requiring a phone call to rectify (letting the CC company know about travel plans before hand made no difference). Another time I needed to top up my mobile data plan and tried to pay ~$3 via credit card and it was denied but thankfully it did not lock the card.

Thanks for the report.

How do the exchange rates of ATMs compare to exchanging dollars in person?

[sengsational]

My experience when getting cash from the ATM (though my credit union ATM card...actually a Visa debit card), I get the average daily exchange rate without fees. When you say "exchanging dollars in person", it depends highly on where you're doing the exchange. If you go to the booth in the airport, they try to make you think you're getting a good rate, then they slam you with a fee. Or they make a big deal about not having a fee, then slamming you on the rate.

[triangle]

Quote:

Originally Posted by explanade Thanks for the report. How do the exchange rates of ATMs compare to exchanging dollars in person?

Exchanging large bills ($100) in person gave better rates than ATM withdrawals. Even $20 bills looked to give a slightly higher exchange rate, but I did not take careful enough notice to say for certain.

But I am glad you asked the question as it encouraged me to take a more careful look at my bank statement. I had assumed that the ATM withdrawals were using the "Visa" exchange rate but it was using a lower rate. I wish banks would provide more information in the transaction history, such as a GMT timestamp of the transaction and the exchange rate used instead of forcing the customer to keep detailed receipts in order to figure it out latter. And some way to know what exchange rate was going to be used before withdrawal instead of guessing.

This may get into useless details for most readers of this thread but an explanation of why this is confusing and hard to sort out later:

• January 1 withdrew bhat using Fidelity ATM card. Exchange rate was 29.11208 THB/USD. It would have been January 1 in New York and December 31 in California. Transaction was posted in my account as occurring on January 3. Which exchange rate was Fidelity using.....Dec 31? Jan 1? Jan 3? there is no way of knowing. According to Forex chart there was about 1.3% difference in exchange rate between Dec 31 and Jan 1.
• January 3 withdrew bhat using Schwab ATM card. Exchange rate was exactly the same at 29.11208 THB/USD even though the forex chart shows daily variations. Transaction was posted in my account as occuring on January 2 which was correct from the banks perspective. Still it is odd to see a transaction made two days later show up 1 day ahead of the other account.
• Even though neither Schwab or Fidelity were using the Visa exchange rate, there is some reason to believe they might be using the same underlying service since the Visa website shows the same exchange rate of 29.752974 for Jan 1 and Jan 2. So if Fidelity was slow to post and Schwab was quick they could have gotten the same rate. Both were 2.15% lower than the Visa rate for Jan 1/2.
• A week later made another Fidelity account withdrawal and it was posted only a day later instead of two days this time, even thought it was roughly 2 hours later in the day as compared to the first one. Maybe the New Year holiday added an extra day delay, hard to know the reason. In this case the rate was also worse than what Visa quoted, but this time it was only 1.547% or 1.92% lower depending on whether the Jan 8 or Jan 9 Visa rate is used.

To summarize I would suggest to my future self and others:

1. Bring $100 bills for best exchange rate
2. Don't hesitate to use your credit card, since it provides a better exchange rate than ATM cash withdrawals
3. Take careful notice of the ATM's offer to do the foreign currency exchange instead of your bank. I wished I had taken a photo or written down the amount but after doing one withdrawal and denying the offer I had a memory flashback while walking by an exchange kiosk thinking that the ATM had just offered me the same rate as I was seeing for $100 bills. But I do not trust my memory well enough, it could have been my imagination.

[brett]

We have used Siam or K bank machines. Our typical withdrawal would be 15000-20000 bhat. We are not worried about having that much money. We find Thailand to be very safe...at least where we travel.

We did use another bank machine that had a limit of 30,000 bhat which surprised me. Cannot remember which one. We only withdrew 20K so I do not know if the 30K select key really worked.

We only spend a few days in Bangkok. We exchange our cash there. Just pulled out some Mexican pesos for an upcoming trip and realized that we have
3400 bhat stashed away for next time!

[sengsational]

I don't know anything about bhat, only European currencies (UK Pounds and Euro). I take out round numbers from the ATM, so I found an example: on 10/30/2019 $333.60 hit my credit union...that had to be €300, so a rate of .8993 (with no extra fees). When I look-up the rate for 10/30/2019, the close for the day was .8999...the difference is pennies.

So it does seem strange that you can get a better deal by wrangling paper currency. Maybe there's a shortage of USD and so they're paying a premium for the bills.

As for using a machine and accepting the exchange rate they give, I've gotten fooled by that in the past and took a bath on the transaction (eh, on a percentage basis...it was at a restaurant that only took cash and I wasn't careful, so it cost me an extra $6 or $8 on €100 withdrawal). To suggest that you can trust to get a good exchange rate from some random ATM in a foreign country seems wildly unintuitive to me when I know I get the official daily rate by letting my institution to the exchange.

[triangle]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sengsational ... To suggest that you can trust to get a good exchange rate from some random ATM in a foreign country seems wildly unintuitive to me when I know I get the official daily rate by letting my institution to the exchange.

I was only suggesting that one look at the rate the Thailand bank ATM offers for currency conversion. The rate was displayed along with the option to withdraw in THB or USD (my home currency), so if one has some idea about their home bank exchange rate they could always make the best decision. I keep the XE app on my phone, so I could know the official rates if I wanted to check in realtime.

My complaint/concern is that there is no way to determine what rate Schwab, Fidelity, or my local bank account will give me from this same ATM terminal before choosing option A or B. And neither Schwab or Fidelity gave very good rates in Thailand as compared to what XE or Visa quoted that same day (not within 1%). I reflexively chose to withdraw in USD without even taking notice of the rate offered by the Thai ATMs, just assuming it would offer a poor exchange rate. It was after my last ATM withdrawal of this trip that I had this foggy flashback that maybe the ATM was offering something competitive (or in fact better, after seeing the poor rate used by Schwab and Fidelity).

[sengsational]

Quote:

Originally Posted by triangle I was only suggesting that one look at the rate the Thailand bank ATM offers for currency conversion.....

Thanks for the follow up. Certainly can't hurt to do an informed comparison when you have quick access to the actual market rate! I'd me much more inclined to compare too, if I'd ever experienced 'bad' rates from my institutions.

[explanade]

I heard there are some international bank ATMs, like Citibank possibly?

Maybe rates are better at such places, though the fees may be high?

[explanade]

Well I'm suppose to go on this trip Monday but the corona virus scare is making me really think.

Thailand hasn't imposed any restrictions on Chinese visitors like many other countries have. I guess they depend on the money they bring.

Other part of this trip includes a few nights in HK, which will start imposing quarantines for people entering HK from China.

Would have to eat a lot of non-cancelable hotel prepayments, as well as some short flights within Thailand.

[BeachOrCity]

I am not you, but if I were I would seriously rethink this: esp staying in HK.

yes you will lose some money and miss a trip you were really looking forward to. And yes it’s probably a less than 1% chance something will happen to you re CV.

But the state Dept has a blanket do not travel on China right now. It doesn’t apply to HK but that is really close. You know what kind of places have that warning? Somalia, Afghanistan, Etc.

99%+ you will be fine. But could you really enjoy yourself on HK with what is going on?

At best I would route myself another way, or just grab a connection in HK to someplace else. But the latter even scares me.

Don’t close yourself off to options other than to do it 100% like you planned or completely cancel.

[brett]

Our preferred route to Thailand after five winters is on Korean Air. Prefer it to HK or Narita.

We are often surprised when travelling in Thailand and in Europe that we can often get a better rate of exchange on our CAD paper money from an exchange store than we can get from a bank ATM.

[explanade]

Thing is, it's not even clear Thailand is safe.

It's estimated there are over 2000 tourists from Wuhan still in country and over 100k from China there.