Using credit cards at ATMs

I think you would need to ask the CC company about whether or not the high interest in a cash advance would apply or not. I'm not sure if anyone on this board is qualified to answer such a question since the terms of CC's vary so much. My guess is that the high interest would still apply. I only guess this because CC company's suck, but I like your logic. Also if you have the cash to put on your credit card why not use a debit card and avoid the cash advance issue in the first place?

There has been a couple of posting claiming that they did that and it worked. However, a few years ago, maybe 5, I had the same idea and called my credit card company - think it was Chase at the time - and received a very complicated answer that didn't make much sense. It would be treated as a cash advance with the cash advance fees and interest rate until the due date of my account than the credit balance would be applied. When I tried to question the logic of the process, I got no where. And the other side is way do all of this brain damage to get a credit card to act like a debit card. Just get a debit card.

Is there anything preventing you using a DEBIT card tied to a CHECKING ACCOUNT for cash withdrawals from ATMs? It is by far the most commonly used way by most of the folks who frequent this web site and go to Europe frequently.

Contact your credit card company first. Potential problems with your plan: 1. On a couple of occasions I have overpayed my credit card, twice it was by accident the other times because I paid my balance off and then returned a major purchase. On one of those 5 times, the credit card company sent me a refund check without me asking instead of having me carry the positive balance. Potential problem: You over pay, they issue you a refund check that arrives in your mailbox the day after you leave for Europe and then you get whacked with the fees cause your balance is now zero. 2. All of my credit cards have a $5+ fee for each ATM withdraw in addition to than any interest fees. Both of my debit cards have a substantially lower fee than that.

Just use an ATM card. Put the money you'd "prepay" the CC company with, into a checking account and avoid any potential high interest rates.

Based only on the observation of a friend, what Frank says is the way it is: the system treats the withdrawel as a cash advance until the end of the period when account balance kicks in. After that, it's first-in / first-out, so the interest would stop (assuming you didn't have a balance left over from the previous period). I overpay a bit each month, but only enough to make the checkbook math simple. I've never gotten a refund since there was probably something already charged that wasn't on the statement (or was charged prior to receipt of my check). An atm card makes it simple.

In case you are thinking of doing it this way for security reasons, your debit card is protected against fraud, too. If it were lost or stolen you would not be liable for fraudulent charges and you would get your money back.

First off, I now do what Charlie suggested and have for several years. Prior to that, I did exactly what Chris is talking about, and did that for maybe fifteen or twenty years on every trip to Europe. Several points were needed to pull this off. First was to make sure the credit card you were using in Europe had no cash withdrawal fees at ATM's. Second was that you require a pin number before going. Third was to pre-pay the credit card the week before going so you won't get the refund check for a while. If these rules were followed, there really were no disadvantages to doing this. But the banks caught on and now we just do the debit card withdrawals, as suggested above.

As others have stated, there is no advantage in doing this in place of regular ATM use. There may be a similar use though in the instance that you need a large sum of cash (for an apartment rent for example) that far exceeds your ATM limit and your bank will not raise your daily limit. In that case I would not pre-pay, I would do the transaction, then go on-line and transfer the funds from your bank to credit card to pay the balance. You will still be hit with any transaction fees and probably interest for some period, but depending on your card, the sum total of fees and interest would probably be less than converting cash at a bank which may be in the 5% range, plus the eliminate need to carry large amounts of cash.

Even if you prepay, a cash advance on a credit card still comes with hefty fees. You shouldn't have interest because you have a negative balance but it won't be free.