It's good to get several cards on several accounts. I have 5 debit or ATM cards on 5 separate accounts and the terms have changed *significantly* on all of them since I retired 6 years ago. Some got better and some got worse.
Also, when you are overseas, your cards will expire, you need to have extra cards in case you lose it, it gets damaged, fraud, the bank temporarily shuts the account down due to suspected fraud, it gets stolen, etc. In Colombia when I was living there, the Visa Star system mysteriously went out in the whole country for over a week -- most foreign ATM cards stopped working. I had a master card based ATM (my HSBC card) as a backup that didn't have that problem but some expats without local banking relationships had real trouble.
Where I live, I have a good friend who I give the keys to my house, motorcycle, etc. And I give him an ATM card. That account has terrible terms (3% foreign transaction fee), but it is nice to have as a backup. If my house got robbed and all my cards were stolen, I know my friend has a card I could use. Or I could text him on my way to the hospital with the ATM code and tell him to bring me money to the hospital, for instance.
Schwab is the best hands down. Gives you a good exchange rate (Visa's daily rate), and there is no percentage deduction for foreign transaction and no hidden deduction for the Visa fee (which apparently is often around 0.65% or thereabouts). Also, they reimburse all foreign ATM fees.
When they first started reimbursing, they didn't handle some countries well. But they seem to have fixed all that.
They fixed the Thailand reimbursements during my time there a few years ago. So hopefully you won't have any problem.+1
I've used my Schwab card on multiple trips to different countries over the last few years and never had any issues. We just returned from Thailand and I'm curious to see if the ATM fees are reimbursed without any issues. Your comment is reassuring, since I wasn't sure if I'd get reimbursed. I remember reading somewhere that it depends on how the bank posts the ATM withdrawal.
I'll post an update once the fees are reimbursed.
They fixed the Thailand reimbursements during my time there a few years ago. So hopefully you won't have any problem.
I think I might have had an issue in Mexico (2011) with some banks but the fees were low so I didn't bother to get reimbursement. But I can't remember the details.
...
I prefer in many places to use a card that has no connection to my larger accounts (some of those at Schwab). My USAA ATM card is linked to a fully isolated account for this purpose and is only used for cash withdrawals.
M
This has been a bit of a nagging concern in the back of my mind for some time, especially now that I do almost all banking, investing, etc. online.
What do you consider a fully isolated account? Unless you are only making cash deposits and withdrawals at ATM's, an account would seem to have some ties to other, presumably larger, accounts.
By fully isolated I mean our ATM travel funds are kept in a separate financial institution (USAA in this case). It does not share direct links to outside main funds and there are no other accounts at USAA that would be at risk if the ATM card is compromised. In short, only cash in the account at the time would be at risk. Transfers can not be made without authentication from one of our other institutions through a third account. I never link any card to main investment accounts such as at Schwab or Vanguard. Especially some places overseas you must be careful about ATM card usage and I do not use it except to access local currency. All other items are either cash or go on another isolated Mastercard or VISA. Of course I have lived in Africa and Eastern Europe so I am careful having seen many things happen with cards. USAA has another great feature in that you can set alerts to text you when there is a transaction over a certain dollar amount.
We carry multiple ATM cards from different places so we can afford to turn one off if needed. Also two chip&pin credit cards for everything else.