Debit Cards

One of our credit unions (GESA) does not charge ATM fees abroad, so maybe check some credit unions.

Definitely check your local credit cards.

I think Fidelity's debit card (for those who have money-management accounts there) is similar to Schwab's--charging no fees itself and reimbursing ATM-usage fees. However, I do not yet have that debit card, so I cannot vouch for how it works.

While I can't give you a suggestion of a fee free card as I use Schwab, I can tell you what I do when I need cash.

I will only use an ATM connected to a bank and during its open hours. This way, if there is a problem, I can go into the bank for help. They can open the cash machine and get your card.

I use Fidelity. I set up a small cash management account for travel debit card/ATM (to keep travel money separate from brokerage accounts). I also have a Fidelity Credit Card. Both are no foreign transaction fee and the ATM fees are reimbursed for the debit card. No problems with either.

I was a Schwab stockbroker (correct term is registered representative) back when Chuck ran the company. I find Fidelity’s customer service more responsive and much easier to work with.

I would just use your normal debit card as a backup. I opened an account that reimburses atm fees. Over the course of 3 weeks, I made several withdrawals, including at a generic atm within a restaurant. I was shocked that the atm fees were only about $10 total. So not worth jumping through all the hoops to open another account.

A great many of thr ATM machines are TAP machines these days. I haven't had to put my card in a slot in any machine in the last 2 years.

They can open the cash machine and get your card.

I wouldn't bank on it (pun kind of intended). Maybe if the bank is smaller, but these days ATMs are either handled by a separate department, or contracted to a third party, so the people inside the bank are powerless to help, opening the ATM is a security breach and requires the entire machine to be audited. Even then, some banks, and your debit card company, have security policies that prevent an employee handing back a card (they are required to return the card to the issuer). Now I can't speak for Turkish banks specifically, but this is the case in many places. But I suppose it never hurts to ask.

I will also echo the rise of tap ATMs, one nice thing about those, is you can also load your ATM card on your phone, and tap. In the case of a problem (lost physical card, fraud detection) your bank may be able to issue a new card, which then you can load the information on your phone and be back in business. Same with a credit card.

We also only use bank ATMs during banking hours. We did have an ATM eat our card in Varenna, Lake Como. We entered the bank and they were able to retrieve our card.

I also have a Charles Schwab card. They have bent over backwards when I've had issues. We were in Puglia when we needed cash, and none of the ATMs would accept the card. I contacted Schwab that night. (No hold time, immediately connected to a living person!) It turned out we had fraud on the card. The issue was resolved by the next morning. They reimbursed fees that we ended up paying when we had to use our credit union card.

This past summer, we found the Schwab card blocked while we were traveling in Montana. We called, and again, we received help immediately and ATM fees for our credit union card were reimbursed. There I was told that when I used the card only for travel, and "all of a sudden" it crops up and is used, especially in places far from home, it can trigger alerts. I was told to occasionally use the card prior to travel, and notify them of all travel out of my state. (Which I'm pretty sure I did) Now, at home, I rarely have need for cash, but, I'm sure I can think of something to use cash for.

I think at one time or another, I've had an issue with most of my credit and ATM cards. Its the world we live in. Often, the issues I've had were related hacks. On one trip, when I used my Nordstrom VISA at a gas station or to buy a train ticket, my card would be blocked for subsequent transactions. When I called, they said they were working on their fraud control systems. I haven't had issues with the card since.

For me, its really important to have accounts with great customer service so when we have issues, I can easily reach a person and get it resolved quickly. I like to travel with at least 3 -4 credit cards, typically a VISA, Master Card, and AMEX. I also have ATM cards with two banks. The cards I've been most pleased with are my Chase VISA, Nordstrom VISA, and both my credit union and Charles Schwab ATM cards.

CapitalOne - no ATM fees, no FX fees.

But Capital One is in the process of switching over to Discover for processing. Once you have their new card badged for Discover finding ATMs that will allow processing will be much more difficult. This has been discussed here.

Another Fidelity user here. All of the features mentioned above.
Brad

It is news to me that Capital One is transitioning to Discover. I will be traveling through several european countries in a couple of weeks and had planned to take my Capital One credit and debit cards. I have not needed Euros on my trips in 2024 & earlier this year. Merchants have preferred credit card transactions, even for very small purchases. Merchants in Europe did not want to keep cash/euros on hand to make change. I also take a Chase debit card and my Apple Goldman Sachs Master Card credit card on my iPhone is my "go to" #1 most used method of payment. I'm going to investigate the change for Capital One to Discover. I have not received any notice of the change.

Here is the link to the very recent discussion here of the Capital One switch to Discover: https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/general-europe/recommendations-for-good-debit-card-that-will-be-widely-accepted

My wife and I both carry a Fidelity ATM card and a Schwab ATM card. All with separate numbers etc. If we have an issue with one card backups are available.

I was just in Rome and ran into the Capital One debit card issue - briefly. The first few ATMs I tried did not accept my card. At that point I did panic and called Capital One. I was assured that there were ATMs labeled with the “Discover Network” in Rome. After that I did indeed find MANY ATMs that accepted my debit card. It was not a problem. They also seemed to be pretty new machines. My advice to anyone running into this is to keep looking. They are out there! But wow, that initial feeling of traveling without access to cash is not a good one. I did bring some money to exchange if needed but nowhere near what would have made me feel at ease.

One of the reason we make sure we have a pin number for our credit cards is that a credit card can be used at an ATM for "cash advances." It is more expensive than using a debit card BUT if that is the only thing working the extra expense is more than worth. Am an engineer who likes back up and redundancy. Therefore between the two of us we carry three different debit cards and five different credit cards - all with pins. We just encode the pin number on the card to make it easy to remember We often will used two different debit cards just to be sure that both are working. We have had situations when a debit card would not work but we just moved to another ATM and it worked fine or try a different card.

Who knows anymore. I have used mine from Kyiv to South Africa to Honduras and all points in-between. Never a problem. But we had a RS gentleman here the other day that using the same US bank as me could not get cash in Budapest. I sent him to my local bank which is really an international bank (Erste) and it worked. But Erste charges a fairly robust fixed fee and he took out too little, so, ouch!

...a credit card can be used at an ATM for "cash advances." It is more expensive than using a debit card BUT if that is the only thing working the extra expense...

I would go to a currency exchange/change desk long before I'd consider a cash advance on a credit card. Just one reason to travel with a stash of USD for emergencies.

Doing a cash advance on a credit card will still give you the best exchange rate (same as the debit card) and the only additional expense is the interest charge since it is viewed as a loan. Still totally cheaper than a money exchange.

I think the interest rate on cash advances obtained via credit card will usually be much higher than what you lose at a currency-exchange booth. Google tells me the interest rate for cash advances on my United MileagePlus card was over 20% as of 2024 (an increase from the 2023 rate). Although rates at airport exchange booths are notoriously bad, I don't think I've ever seen an in-town rate as bad 20% off the interbank rate.

We commonly warn other travelers about going to a currency-exchange booth, which is usually good advice since they are costly options in the most popular European counties. However, there are some places (one being Albania) where a currency-exchange booth may charge no fee and give an exchange rate only about 1% worse than the interbank rate. This is not true of all money-changers in Albania; for example, I'm sure rates at the airport are significantly worse. If you're in a bind, it doesn't hurt in the former Iron Curtain countries to take a look at exchange booths. Be sure you have the whole picture, though: Ask about both exchange rate and service charge. In Albania, I just showed the person staffing the booth my 50-euro or 100-euro note and asked how many Albanian lek it would buy.

For those that travel primarily on cash, this is all a big deal. For those that travel primarily on a credit card, I think there is a lot of needless stress going on here.

Let’s say your 14-day holiday costs $6000 including airfare. And let’s say your daily expenses other than the hotel average $200 a day and that cash, on average, will make up 10% of your daily expenses. That’s $20 a day or $280 for the trip = 4.6% of the cost of your holiday. If one were to pay 10% “too much” on the conversion by using a higher priced exchange house or a EuroNet ATM, that adds $28 to your trip = 0.46% increase in your trip cost.

You travel for enjoyment. For some people every penny counts for psychological reasons, and they trip would be less if they know they paid half a percent too much; but for many the worry of the half a percent is a distraction for the fun of the travel. Do what works for you.

I have a Schwab debit card. It has the benefits noted above. My backup is a debit card from my local bank that has fees associated with it, but if I need cash and card #1 has been eaten by an ATM (as happened in Krakow somewhere around 2018), then I have no problem paying the fee to get cash on the backup card.

I think the interest rate on cash advances obtained via credit card will usually be much higher than what you lose at a currency-exchange booth. Google tells me the interest rate for cash advances on my United MileagePlus card was over 20% as of 2024 (an increase from the 2023 rate). Although rates at airport exchange booths are notoriously bad, I don't think I've ever seen an in-town rate as bad 20% off the interbank rate.

But you are comparing an interest rate vs a conversion rate, two very different things.

The conversion rate is a percent based fee, so if the transaction is $200, at a 20% conversion fee, your cost will be $40, there is no time element.

Interest is typically expressed as an APR, an annual rate. You would pay 20% of the transaction, if you did not pay for a year (actually more with compounded interest). But if you, as many on here say, pay off your credit card monthly, and you carried that $200 the full month, at 20-24%, the interest for the month is around 2%, or about $4 on that $200. Of course, after you withdraw cash, you could go online and pay your account off immediately, avoiding much interest.

There is also a fee associated with a cash advance. usually a minimum, $10 or 3-5% of the transaction if that totals more than $10.

So a $200 cash advance, for most card holders, would cost a $10 fee, plus up to $4 in interest, or $214. That is a 7% markup, comparable to getting cash at a bank in the US, Hard to compare to exchange places in Europe (too much variability and shady places), and certainly less than airport counters at around 10-15%, or more.

My UNFCU Elite card offer cash advance for $5 or 2% of transaction, so I can get a cash advance of $200 for less than 5%. Just never have been in a situation where I needed to use it.

You're right of course, Paul. I was thinking about the up-front cash-advance fee and the interest that would be accrued if one didn't pay the balance off at the first opportunity. I trust I'll never have to take a cash advance on a credit card, but if I do, I'll be paying off the card that very day (online) to stop the accrual of interest.

I sometimes look at the buy/sell spread when I pass currency-exchange booths, and it often seems to be no more than 15%, which suggests the cost to buy local currency probably doesn't much exceed 7%, unless there's a separate fee (I've never asked). But the spreads trend lower as you head east, in my experience, and your credit card isn't going to give you a cut-rate deal if you take a cash advance in Albania, a country where money-changers charge only about 1%. It is essential, though, to avoid the money-exchange booths in airports--and probably also in train stations, shopping malls, etc.