Credit card of Debit card?

One of the problems with using debit cards to pay for hotel rooms or rental cars is that there is a "hold" of several hundred dollars placed on the funds in your checking account until you check out/return the car. After that the hold is supposed to me released immediately but in practice in can take several days. In the meantime if you check into another hotel, more of your funds will be put on hold and it could effect you cash flow; unless you have A LOT of money in the bank. When you use a credit card a hold is only placed on your credit limit. If you really want to beat the fees pay in cash with money withdrawn from an ATM.

I used my debit card from wamu...the fee was super low..while my friend who used her bank of america credit card got charged much higher than me

We did use the ATM but when booking rooms or side trips we ended up not having enough cash so we used the CC.

I read somewhere (can't find now) that there are some CCs that would allow you to make purchases abroad and not have these fees. Anyone ever heard of this?

Eli,

Capital One has no extra foreign exchange fees and absorbs the 1% fee imposed by MasterCard or VISA.

Right now, Capital One does not pass along any conversion fees for its credit cards.

Debit cards are bad in general. And worse when going to Europe.

If anyone there charges too much to your account, it is immediately sucked out and you are in a bad position to try and recover your money while in a foreign country working with a local business in another language that may have made a mistake or that cheated you. Add to this communicating to your own bank with huge time differences.

Use an ATM and a credit card.

I bank at a credit union and they gave me a great deal on the exchange using my debit card, but I called and talked to the lady in charge of that department before I left. Armed with the information on this website about who had the smallest exchange rates and fees, I called BofA and "negotiated" a better rate (though I don't recall what it was off the top of my head -- whatever was the best one discussed last fall). Negotiating with a major credit card company is an exersize in patience and persistence, just keep waiting on hold till you get the right person on the line, and insist they send you the results in writing.

Everyone is so helpful here! Thanks so much.

Will check into Capital 1, negotiating with my CC company, and I hadn't even thought about the problem with Debit cards, so thanks for that piece of information.

Does anyone take Travellers Cheques these days?

No, travellers checks are dinosaurs. I have heard of a few people who like to carry an emergency fund of them, but most people know they are hard to cash( most small busineses and cafes won't take thems so don't bother) Rick Steves even says they are useless,LOL!

I use my debit card to withdraw money from an ATM every three or four days. My bank charges me nothing for foriegn ATM withdrawals, part of the package with the type of account I have.
I use my CC to pay for anything big, hotel, train tickets, fancy restaurants.

Hi Eli-I have always used a combination of credit cards, debit cards and cash while in Europe. The last time I went to Spain in April of 2007, I used my Capital one cc and my debit card. My bank account is with HSBC bank which is the Hong Kong Singapore bank. With that they have branches all over Europe. Because of that I did not pay any fees with the exception of withdrawing money. Which was only the most $5. You may want to get an account with a bank like citibank that has branches all over Europe. I have found Capital one to be good as well. I usually only make a few withdrawals of large amounts. So I do not have to continuously pull out money. I requested that HSBC raise the amount I can withdraw and they did. Happy Travels. Kim