Currency exchange

Your own bank may have a dollar limit per day, and the bank operating the ATM may have its own limit. Try the amount you want, then if it is not approved keep reducing the amount until you get cash, or try another bank's ATM. Last year in France and Austria I was able to get 400 and 600 Euros at a time, which was adequate since most of my hotels took credit cards.

You get money out of one bank's machine, go the one across the road, then to the one around the corner ........ until you either have what you need or hit the limit imposed by your bank. Sometimes you can keep sucking it out of the first machine with multiple transactions. There's no limit on what you can have in a day as long as you have the means to make it available to yourself.

We use debit card with PIN to get euros at "Banque Postale" ATMs in France. Good currency conversion rate and no "per transaction" fees. We set a daily withdrawal limit with our home bank, and let them know where we expect to use the card, before departure. Have not encountered problems at 600 euro/day, but cannot tell if there's an upper limit.

Lew,

This is tricky.

on the ATMS here, i can access my savings or checking account and it will be a 300 limit. i havent seen where i can do a cash advance.

when i was over in europe i didnt see how to access my savings or checking and it was defaulting to "cash advance" so, i would assume its whatever the ATM/Bank allows. but i was able to w/d more than what i wanted. The catch, foreign w/d fees.

my next trip, i will do more investigating into if i can w/d $$ from my savings/checking.

happy trails.

Anytime you use a CREDIT card for cash, whether at home or abroad, you're getting a cash advance (i.e. a loan), and you'll pay a 3-5% surcharge to your card company. Using a DEBIT card, issued by a bank or savings institution, to get cash, accesses your money, costing them nothing. However, using a debit card issued by bank A, to get cash at bank B's ATM, may involve a "per transaction" fee that is shown on the withdrawal statement. If none is shown, then banks A and B may recover the cost of the transaction by giving you a poorer currency exchange rate. After you're home from your trip, check your debit card statement to determine the dollar/euro conversion rate you were given against http://www.xe.com/currency/usd-us-dollar or similar website.

'means to make it available.......' contemplates and includes having the applicable withdrawal authority for the desired amount.

My bank (PNC) offers a checking account that has no fee for 'foreign' (their wording) ATM transactions. We had to meet certain minimum requirements to be eligible for this level of account. You may want to enquire at your bank to see if they have something similar.

A couple of corrections to Dave's post:

1st - banks will use the interbank exchange rate in their networks. While currency exchanges will play around with their exchange rate, banks generally do not at their ATMs.

2nd - European banks almost never charge a fee for using their machines (a notable exception is Travelex, which is more of a for-profit currency exchange service).

3rd - Your own bank may charge you a foreign transaction fee (typically 1-3%) and/or an out-of-network fee (typically a set rate of $2-5 per transaction). Some people avoid such charges by opening alternate accounts with banks that don't charge the fees or by using ATMs that are within their network (some big US banks have agreements with some European banks). Always check with your bank on what their fees and policies are.

Ask your bank what (or if) the daily withdrawal limit is. I have accounts at a couple of credit unions and each has different limits. Individual ATMs will also have limits.

I found that the ATMs in Paris (bank and Postale) withdrawals defaulted to checking account even though the primary account is a savings account. I discovered this when I got a notification that my never used and therefore almost empty checking account had an overdraft.

I have had no trouble withdrawing from my credit union savings account, but I do not have a checking account there. No foreign currency service fee, no "roaming" fees on ATM's.

Yes, I'd be roaming a long way from my credit union. My regular bank charges me $3 if I use someone else's ATM. I have been unable to find any of their ATM's in Europe yet, but I'll keep trying. I'm getting the urge to do some "field" research.

We found that a bank in our neighborhood (Bank of America) had an arrangement with BNP Paribus that allows withdrawals at BNP Paribus with no foreign exchange fees. It's just like using the ATM at home. So my wife and I both opened accounts that we use just for traveling. They have the same arrangement at Barclay's in England.

This summer, we'll only be in Paris two nights before traveling on to Belgium and The Netherlands where there isn't a bank that does this so we're planning to stock up on Euros in Paris.

As a result, your question and the many answers have been very helpful to us.