Plan to travel to Paris / Rome in a few weeks. No prior Europe travel. Is it wise to convert some cash to Euro State side or should we convert in Paris (first stop). Is it better to pay for items in Euros or use our Amex card / Mastercard ?
Plan to travel to Paris / Rome in a few weeks. No prior Europe travel. Is it wise to convert some cash to Euro State side or should we convert in Paris (first stop). Is it better to pay for items in Euros or use our Amex card / Mastercard ?
Get euros at atm (not currency conversion) once you land at CDG; best rate and cost. We have a Fidelity ATM card and never a fee and great exchange rate.
Marc
+1
Later, Try to find a bank that is a partner to your US bank. Often they wave some ATM charges. Your local bank should be able to tell you if they have a partner in the country you are visiting.
FWIW, you can do better than the PenFed VISA overseas, because you can get a rewards card with 0% foreign transaction fee.
I take my PenFed VISA for the very rare occasions I need a chip and PIN card to buy tickets from a machine. Otherwise I use my 1.5% BofA Travel Rewards VISA (chip and signature).
The Fidelity AMEX 2% rewards card charges 1% foreign transaction fees. But that still makes it a 1% rewards card when used overseas. The problem is that overseas acceptance of American Express is not high.
I have to admit that I didn't really shop around that much for a no foreign transaction fee card. We have our mortgage through PenFed and it was just convenient to sign up for their credit card as well. We only ever use it overseas.
Italy (especially Rome) is the same. I recommend women leave their purses behind. It took me several trips to convince my wife; but after she saw enough people having issues, I converted her.
But, I agree with above posters to wait until you arrive and use an ATM. Schwab also has no fees. It is the only reason I opened the account!
I have three of the cards on this list. I have never used one for a foreign transaction. The other two have a 1% fee that I have been told isn't a "foreign transaction" fee but a "currency exchange" fee.This may help with the credit cards...sorry it's so long:
Credit Cards With No Foreign Transaction Fee
These are all credit cards that charge no foreign transaction fees at all.
I have three of the cards on this list. I have never used one for a foreign transaction. The other two have a 1% fee that I have been told isn't a "foreign transaction" fee but a "currency exchange" fee.
Some people are obsessed with have local currency when they get off the plane. If this is you, convert about $100 worth at a currency exchange booth either before leaving or after arrival. You will be ripped off for a rate about 10 to 15% worse than you will get with an ATM. There are ATMs at CDG. A taxi from the airport to the center of Paris is about 60 to 70 euro. There are several bus options and RER service can get you where you want to go for less but these are difficult to use if you have more than one smallish suitcase & backpack. If you have more than this, why?
We've been in Spain (Andalusia) for the last two months. During this trip I've only needed to use an ATM three times, and one of those was because the tow truck driver wanted cash (long story for another post).FWIW, I noticed yesterday that opening a Schwab Investor Checking account for that great ATM card with all ATM fees reimbursed and no foreign transaction fee requires that you open a Schwab brokerage account at the same time, but the brokerage account does not have to be funded at all!
Important little detail........
We may go ahead and do this, and then have the brokerage account available for whenever we decide to invest in some of the Schwab ETFs.
Thanks!Good to hear from you Nords.
I haven't traveled in Spain, but I haven't had trouble with my PenFed VISA with chip and PIN in Europe. I've only used it for the occasion where a PIN was required in a ticket machine. It doesn't always work - but that is usually because of foreign credit card restrictions by the machine company, not a problem with the card PIN.
Several countries I have traveled in don't seem particularly surprised by signature required on my chip credit card. Not in the tourist areas anyway. Away from the tourist areas maybe.
I mostly use my Bank of American Travel Rewards VISA (chip and signature) since it pays a nice reward (1.5%) as well as no foreign transaction fee. I carry the Chase VISA Mileage Rewards card and the PenFed VISA as backup. The Fidelity AMEX can also be used as a backup and I only lose 1% to the foreign transaction fee (so still get 1% reward) but so few places accept AMEX, that it's use as a backup card is limited. Some big city hotels do accept AMEX.
I haven't tried using the PenFed ATM card overseas as I was never sure about their fees. This year we hope to use our new Fidelity ATM cards.
Are you having a problem with the credit card or their ATM card being blocked?
Oh - I see. I always use chip cards in Europe. They don't seem to be too surprised to have to print out a receipt for me to sign in the main tourist areas.Thanks!
Most cashiers seem surprised by having to swipe the card instead of sticking a chip into the reader slot. I have had problems using the Chase credit card in an ATM (for printing Alhambra tickets from a La Caixa system). I can't get the Spanish Renfe (train) website to process the card no matter how I register it with them. (They try to do a VPN login with an American verification site.) Hopefully by our next trip (September) we'll be armed with a no-conversion-fee chip&PIN card.
I don't have a PenFed credit card or ATM card. I tried to transfer funds over their website from my Spanish IP address, and customer-service hilarity ensued. But I'll write that up as a new thread.