Money/ATM in Rome

Ask the owner if he/she will accept a bank draft in euro. If so, open an account with XE Trade, www.xe.com/fx. Money will be taken from your checking account by electronic transfer and a bank draft in euro will be made payable to the owner. Have the draft mailed to your home address rather than to the owner and hand it over when you arrive in Italy. The exchange rate will be only slightly higher than the international rate on the day the transaction is initiated and there are no fees.

Call your bank and ask for a higher ATM limit. We upped ours to 1,000 and had no difficulty pulling money out for 43 days this summer to pay for apartments.

Places that ask for payment in cash are used to this sort of issue. We travel with two separate credit cards, in case one gets lost, as well as our bank cards. There are two withdrawal limits - your own bank, and the limit of the ATM where you are withdrawing. That might be, for example, 300 Euros. Between the two of us, we can withdraw 300 Euros using each of our bank cards. We go to an ATM (one that's very close to our hotel/B&B) and withdraw our daily limit. Take it to the B&B and pay them that amount. Then the next day, we withdraw more money and take it to the B&B, until we have paid the full amount. We ask first if it's ok to do it this way, and have never had an issue.

Teresa, Your home bank sets the daily limit, the Italian bank sets a transaction limit, you can perform multiple transactions until you reach your bank's daily limit.

Thank you...it's so nice to have people who know these things!

We were in Rome last month and found that some ATM's had 250 euro limits, and some had 500 euro limits, and some had amounts in-between. Like you have been told, if your actual limits are higher you can make more than one transaction. One situation I ran into in Italy was that some ATM's (I only use bank ATM's) said that my card was not authorized for International use. I would just find another ATM that would take my card. The ATM's I found all had English options.

We ran into the same thing in Rome. Unfortunately our bank contracts with a service and couldn't increase the limit. Even though we had far more than enough in checking. And Rome was the only place I had trouble getting money from an ATM, that I recall. (The fact that the ATM machine was only in italian and german didn't help.) Fortunately, being I didn't want to spend a lot of time looking for friendly ATM machines; we got extra euros for the hotel bill. We used AAA to get the cash in euros. Though not in Europe but the Turks and Cacios; one CC; even though we told them where we were going; wouldn't accept charges. Give yourself several options.

Dan, you must have been in some odd locations because in our 15 years of travel all over Europe have never seen an ATM, or ticket machine, etc. that didn't do everything in six to eight languages and sometimes more. It is your bank and if it doesn't want to do what you want to do, find a new bank. They are supposed to service you - not the other way around. Both my bank and credit union provide a $1000 daily limit. Had to ask for it and had to push our bank a bit for that limit. Low level service personal have to follow policy, the bank manager does not. Start with him.

Well. I found the one ATM machine with only 2 languages. German and Italian. I'm not sure if my problem was the ATM or my limited italian and german. I know I can go to another bank. But to be honest, it doesn't make sense to change banks, create new problems for myself. And lose a lot of convenience most of the year. For a few weeks a year out of the country. There are other options. My main reason for speaking. We all need more than one way to deal with money. Europe isn't a good place to find one of them doesn't work. And not have a back up. I've had problems with both ATMs and CCs. Even after telling them where I'd be. But never both CCs and ATM at the same time.

Your need for cash outstrips your daily limit. In your case I would get Euros ahead of time, at a national bank, to pay your hotel. You will still want cash for meals, transportation, admissions and incidentals. Using your daily transaction limit for only lodging is likely to create problems. Otherwise open a bunch of accounts and take a debit card from each so you can get the cash you need.