Using ATMs and Credit Cards in Thailand

[explanade]

Going next month, my first time.

Apparently the ATMs are notorious there for high fees. Recommendation is to take cash and exchange it.

I have Schwab ATM card, where they've always refunded ATM fees. But it sounds like it could be in the range of $7-9 per transaction.

Also heard of high credit card surcharges, like 7%, which is more than what credit cards typically charge the merchants.

Anyone see contactless in Thailand for credit card transactions?

 

[cooch96]

I visited 18 years ago (Pre-tsunami) and remember exchanging cash, mostly at kiosks in tourist-infested beaches. Everything was so cheap back then, I wouldn’t have flinched too bad at those credit card surcharges.

I hope you have a great time!

 

[clobber]

ATMs are not a problem (just try to use one at a bank vs store). Yes there is a surcharge, but not a percentage. More like $5 each time. So just take out $300 when you need it.

No - nothing like that for a credit card surcharge. You'll be fine.

 

[YVRRocketSurgery]

If you have a Schwab card that refunds ATM fees, that seems like a great way to go even with the local ATM's flat fee.
I don't recall cc fees like that nor contactless but we typically don't use cc's that much in Thailand other than for the hotel.

If you do bring cash for exchange, $100 bills will typically get you a slightly better exchange rate at many forex counters. One of the best forex places is Superrich. They have a number of locations in Bangkok with a handy one in the lower levels of
Suvarnabhumi airport.

 

[KB]

I was in Thailand last month and my bank charged me $2.00 and 1% fee. I found that I was limited to 13,000 baht each time I withdrew cash, which was a little more than $430 USD. So my fees were 4.30 + 2.00 each time. I used an ATM at the airport and one in the town where I was staying.

I did not use my credit card much since I was staying on a small island and eating and purchasing in small family run shops. I stayed on Koh Phangan.

 

[brett]

We have spent the last five or so winters in Thailand. We typically go with about 1K in cash that we exchange. We take 500baht for the cab from the airport to our hotel.

We only use bank ATMs. They are all over. The Thai banks will charge about $6.50USD for an ATM withdrawal. It it deducted from your cash, so you may not see it on the receipt as I recall. It is displayed on the terminal prior to pushing the yes button for the transaction. There does not seem to be much of a limit. On a number of occasions we have withdrawn $500 worth of bhat. The amount depends on the bank. I think Siam Bank had the highest cash withdrawal limit. K was also good.

Some stores, restaurants, and smaller family run hotels will charge 3 percent if you pay by card instead of cash. We pay by card as often as possible because our credit card does exchange at the actual visa rate, not the inflated bank rate.

I cannot recall if the terminals have tap and go.

Take extra cards. We met a couple on Ko Lippe, an island, who had their card swallowed by an ATM machine. The bank could not send a tech over for two days (holiday). They had to extend their stay. On some islands smaller islands such Ko Ngai we did not see any ATMs.

 

[gayl]

I haven't been there in almost a year so my info could be dated. I figured out what I needed, unfroze card once, then blocked it again. In less than 2 minutes I was hacked. Next time (September 2020) I'll get it here (up the street at the Thai market) and leave it blocked. USAA made me whole but it was a hassle because everything is on automatic (deposits & bill pymt)

'They' say it doesn't happen but it happened to me.

 

[explanade]

You were hacked immediately after using a credit card there?

What kind of store or restaurant?

 

[gayl]

I really don't know who hacked me BUT the tour operator booked a hotel room for weekend in Phuket on my Visa. Fortunately it wasn't my debit card. I had some USD that I changed with a money change booth. I'll iron a few $20s for the trip. They like perfectly flat ones

 

[explanade]

Read elsewhere that they like $100 bills the best.

I guess I can take some cash, but I vastly prefer using credit cards.

I don't know if they have contactless terminals. Apple Pay doesn't give them a card number or other details like your name.

 

[brett]

We had no problem with $100 bills. We change them at an agency near Siam Sq. Excellent rate. We will do the same if we go later this month

We have had good luck. Over five winters in SE Asia, mostly Thailand, we have never had our cards compromised or had a bad experience.

 

[zinger1457]

The Schwab debit card is the way to go and what I use, they refund all ATM fees and you get a decent exchange rate to boot. As stated above I would stick to the more secure ATM's that are part of a bank. Schwab also suggest you submit a Travel Notice on your account listing the countries and dates you'll be traveling, there's a link for it next to your account when you login.

 

[explanade]

Yeah I'll have to remember to try to do that.

I never give travel notices, so far, the banks have not locked out my credit or debit cards.

It may have happened once or twice and I would have to call back. But I got a pretty cheap setup for calling back to the US so shouldn't be a big deal.

 

[tulak]

I used the Schwab debit card in Thailand. I was reimbursed all fees, as expected. Saved over $80 in fees.

 

[explanade]

I used the Schwab debit card in Thailand. I was reimbursed all fees, as expected. Saved over $80 in fees.

Thanks, just the info. I needed. Good to know they will even deal with rather high fees.

 

[brett]

Our experience with currency exchange in Thailand and other SE Asia countries is that they want bills in good condition. Newer bills, no rips, tears, or writing.

We always take some smaller bills. More than once we have only wanted to exchange a $10 or $20...just enough for transportation to the airport. This has never been an issue.

 

[zinger1457]

Our experience with currency exchange in Thailand and other SE Asia countries is that they want bills in good condition. Newer bills, no rips, tears, or writing.

We always take some smaller bills. More than once we have only wanted to exchange a $10 or $20...just enough for transportation to the airport. This has never been an issue.

That has been my experience also, I make it a point of requesting new bills when making a withdrawal at my bank before any trip overseas. The only issue with using smaller bills is that you will get a lower exchange rate in most places but it's still better than bringing home excess foreign cash, the rate to exchange it back to $US is terrible.

 

[brett]

We have a box of currency at home that we use for day one or to get to an ATM or currency exchange booth. Currently have bits of US, Euros, UK, Cuba, Mexico, and Thai paper money.

 

[braumeister]

We have a box of currency at home that we use for day one or to get to an ATM or currency exchange booth. Currently have bits of US, Euros, UK, Cuba, Mexico, and Thai paper money.

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.

In fact, there was an interesting story there. I had some UK pounds with me to spend there, since I knew they were interchangeable. You pay with whatever currency and get change in Falkland pounds. But one of the notes I had with me was from Northern Ireland, which has banknotes printed by the Bank of Denmark and they look just a bit odd.

I offered a Northern Ireland £20 note in payment in Port Stanley and there ensued a fascinating discussion among the shop owners as to whether to accept it or not because they had never seen one before. They finally decided to take a chance and accepted it. There was a guy from London there at the time and he was very excited because he had never seen one either.

 

[BeachOrCity]

Just remember to change back to dollars before you leave the country. They are not a hard currency and you sometimes cannot get US dollars for baht once you leave.

 

[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]

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]

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.