ATM HELP

CONTACT YOUR CARD ISSUER !!!! They are the only one who can tell you what YOUR limits are. You will encounter two types of limits. The first limits are the ones imposed on you by your bank/card issuer/etc. These limits can be a total amount in a 24 hr period and/or the number of withdraws in the same period. Second, the ATM machine itself may limited the size of each withdrawn. In popular tourist areas and especially on weekends, the banks do not want an ATM drained of cash by a few large withdraws. That amount will vary -- 200, 250 ?? We always use ATMs attached to the outside of bank during the week, during business hours and have never encountered a withdraw limit for these ATMs. We were in Italy and Switzerland last summer and never had a problem.

I have a BofA ATM card with a $500 withdraw limit in the U.S. I was not able to withdraw that much in equivalent Euros or Swiss Francs. I did carefully notify the bank as to my travel dates and locations in Europe as well as confirming my withdrawl limits. As Frank explains above, I could withdraw as much as 220-250Euros once daily. Most times, we didn't need that much so we were fine. ATMs are everywhere so you won't have a problem getting cash. I would also suggest having a second ATM card from a different bank for backup. We also have a WAMU ATM card and used it a few times as their overall fee is less than the BofA card. Make sure that your PIN number contains no more than 4 numbers and no letters. Yes, you're ATM PIN number can begin with zero (some claim that it's a problem). Mine does and it works fine.

Hi Skip,

Both of the above gave very good advice. We had a couple of ATM's limit us to 250 Euro per day, even though our bank card had a higher limit. Also, I'm not sure about this, but ask if the limit for the 24 hour period is based on the time at home or the local time of where you're at at the moment.

Paul

All of the above are GREAT advice. I also have B of A acounts in the US. I contacted B of A and raised my daily limit to $2,000. We have a local Italian account but needed to have an "emergency access" option. On separate occasions I have gone to ATM's and pulled out up to 750e euro in one transaction. Other times I've had to do three separate withdrawals to gain the money I needed.

Some banks, like Banco di Roma only allow 250 euro per transaction (and charge you a fee). Other banks, in my case San Paulo, allowed me to withdraw more than 250 euro. So as suggested above, contact your bank first otherwise the "two step process" required above will prevent you getting ALL the money you ned... Good luck in your travels!

Ciao,
Ron

I used to work for Seafirst, now BofA. As I recall we had a $500 daily limit for most accounts. The "Gold" account had a $1000 daily limit for cash withdrawels with either a minimum balance or monthly fee. It may be worth moving into the monthly fee account during your trip to save the extra ATM fees. When I worked there it was just a code change on the account, you didn't have to get new checks or debit cards.

Definitely talk to your branch manager. I worked there more than ten years ago and I'm sure there have been at least two waves of major changes since then (BofA taking over and later their big merger).

The good thing about having your money in BofA is you CAN take it with you - because they're all over hell. LOL. A little bank humor.

We used our BofA ATM card last year in Germany, Austria and Italy. We had our daily withdrawal increased and we each had an ATM card. In Germany and Austria, we would try to find a Deutsche Bank which is part of the BofA system. In this way, we were able to avoid the withdrawal fees. Both my husband and I would withdraw money from our joint account using our own ATM cards. Sounds funny, but I had never realized we could each withdraw from the same account the limit for our own card. I would withdraw money and then he would withdraw money right after me. We would use Deutsche Banks in Italy, but I believe that for some reason we were not able to avoid the withdraw fees for those banks in Italy. I'm sure it's one of those small, bottom of the page clauses I never read. I always have ATM cards for 2-3 banks with me. You never know when one of them may be rejected for whatever reason. Also realize that you may hit the button on the ATM machine for a certain amount of euros and you may be rejected. Just do your transaction again hitting a button for a lesser amount of euros. Sometimes we don't always calculate the exchange rate right. Have fun making memories.

Skip, call Bank of America and make sure to have a note put onto your account stating you'll be out of country and to not turn your debit card off due to unusual spending. Also watch out once you return. A couple of years back, my husband and I returned from Florence Italy only to find our debit card was rejected when we used it at a restaurant (how embarrassing!). The bank stated it was because we used it in another country and then once back in the states and found it to be unusal spending (we left a note on the account). So just be sure to contact the bank and let them know where you will be and when you will return. As for the limit, I do never withdraw more than $500 a day. But call to ask what their restrictions and such are.

Skip,

I'd suggest taking at TWO debit cards on different accounts (if possible), as well as at least one credit card. I always travel with at least one 'backup' card!

Note also that your funds MUST be in a chequing account with a four number PIN. Euro ATM's don't seem to be set-up to access savings accounts.

As the others have suggested, be sure to contact your bank to not only have your daily withdrawal limit increased (as the currency exchange rates will be a factor), keeping in mind that the local banks in Italy and Switzerland may impose their own daily withdrawal limits. Also, as suggested previously, be sure the bank knows that you'll be travelling in Europe so they don't "freeze" your account when they see transactions occurring across the pond.

Cheers!

Ken, as of summer 2006 the partner banks in Italy were Deutsche Bank and Banca Antoniana. You can withdraw up to your daily limit at partner banks, but only a preset amount at other banks. I don't think you avoid fees at partner banks...BofA certainly charged me in any case. I believe the daily limit means every 24 hours, you cannot make further withdrawals until at least 24 hours from the withdrawal that met your daily limit. I was unsuccessful withdrawing more than the preset limit at non-partner banks.

Does anyone know if there are bank machines in Europe that you can insert U.S. currency and get back euros? If so, what is the normal exchange rate for that?

Tony: You need to have an ATM card, one with a 4 digit numerical PIN--it's that simple. I've never seen the kind of machine you're asking about and you don't want to waste your time looking for one.

Tony, I don't think I have ever seen such a machine and doubt if one exists. Think about this --- there are many, many tourists in Europe -- most of them NOT American using something besides US dollars. So why would they have a machine for just American dollars. And there are no machine in the US that will take Euro and give dollars.

The machine that Tony describes does exist. ABM-Ambro has them at Schipol airport. There used to be similar machines at Newark Airport. Having said that, I have never seen anyone using them:)

I'll add my voice to those saying the machine described by Tony does exist, but I think they're quite rare. We first saw one while ambling down the street in Avignon several years ago; and I remember thinking "what a good idea!" I expected that they would soon be everywhere, but it didn't happen. We may have noticed them once or twice since. If you know a location, they might be a good default option if your ATM card should not be working. (Notice two ifs in that sentence.) I also suspect they don't give a great exchange rate. We had no trouble with using ATMs in Italy this past May. Just follow the advice repeated many times on this site . . .notify your bank, use machines attached to banks, etc. You might want to contact BofA to find out which banks are their partners to avoid the fee for using a nonBofA machine; but after spending a lot of time trying to ferret out that information, we were never near one of those when we needed cash. It didn't seem like a good use of our time to run around looking for a particular bank to save a couple of dollars. Still, if you have the information, you might be able to use it. As much as anyone, I hate paying those ridiculous junk fees the banks keep inventing. Re limits: Ask your bank to raise yours, but then it still has to do with the bank whose machine you are using.

Neil, be cautious on the partner bank arrangement with BofA. The last time I looked at their website on this subject, I did not see an Italian partner bank (that despite BofA being originally founded as the Bank of Italy by Giannini in 1906. It was changed to Bank of America in 1939). I did see Barclay's and Deustchebank. I also saw that the reciprocal arrangement of no fee withdrawls only works in the home countries of the partner banks (U.S., Great Britain and Germany). That's why you may see a fee in other countries. I have, however, seen posts on this site where travelers have made "no fee" withdrawls in other than the home countries.

Larry, you are absolutely correct. By absolutely correct, I mean that little useful information can be gained from BofA's website. Local branches are not given this information either...they just refer you to a phone number you can call at what I presume is a regional or national or international main bank. I had to call BofA to get the info and they had to tell me verbally the names of partner banks. Also they told me the phone number to call if there was any problem with using my debit card at ATMs. You'd think it would be pretty easy to have this info on their website, but it's not there. I should have added to my original post that I suggest you call your bank just before departure because things change. My checking account statement reveals that in Italy I was charged a separate small amount for ATM transactions. In France two months ago, I was not charged these small amounts so I assume any such charge was included in the exchange rate.

Call your bank...they can readily tell you your daily limit and fee schedule...important for us as one day out of every 5 we'll need big bucks (big euros) to pay hotel bills in cash and receive the cash discount that seems prevalent abroad.