Who is holding on to old traveler's checks?

A better statistic would be the percentage outstanding of all checks issued. I am guessing that most of the 1.8 B would be lost, misplaced, or buried somewhere in the household. At one time I used to carry in the US a $50 AE traveler's check in my billfold as a back up to cash shortage BUT that was in the days before ATMs and debit cards. At one time the only way to get cash was to use a personal check at your bank or somewhere that your check was accepted. Carrying a TC was an insurance policy. How many did that and then lost track of that TC?

I wonder what the value of unredeemed gift cards is. Probably more than $1.8 B.

Fortunately, it has become as difficult to purchase them in the U.S. as it is to use them in the Euro zone. Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, TD Bank, AAA and many others no longer sell them. In my city, they are available at the branches of only one regional bank.

I believe this is what's known in the business as "breakage". Lost checks, gift cards with money still on them that have been lost, forgotten or buried...this is very, very common. These things are actually highly profitable for those companies that sell/issue them. If you think about it, what a great business to be in: someone trades money for these things that store value, but then they either lose/forget them, or (in the case of gift cards) they aren't drained completely. All that unredeemed money is pure profit.

I would guess that nobody is intentionally sitting on accumulated travelers checks these days, except possibly drug dealers, money launderers, Russian oligarchs and other shady characters who have a reason to avoid banks and other institutions.

IIRC back in the day, nefarious spooks used bundles of Amex travelers checks to launder/move untraceable cash to fund things like secret armies and bribes during the Iran/Contra scandals. Ah, the good old days when you could pop into an American Express office in any big city and cash those things...

You can still buy the checks directly from AmEx. And some people still do. Can't understand why other than the (somewhat) guarantee they will be replaced if lost or stolen. I would rather just leave the money in my bank and draw it out at an ATM as needed.

I would bet most of those uncashed checks are stashed in someone's sock drawer forgotten and rotting away while AmEx (and others) still continue to collect interest on the value.

My bank won't even let you cash them anymore after being at one time the largest volume seller of the checks in the 90's. You have to deposit them as collection items and wait 2 weeks for them to clear (collection item in banking terms means something that takes special handling or something that may not actually clear).

I will have to check with the parents to see if they have any still unspent. I know I spent my last one 20 years ago and never looked to get another one.

I can't imagine the thought process of someone who initiates a new purchase of traveler's checks in 2018. I'm going to assume it is a small number of people, over 50, who have an extreme paranoia about banks.

I can certainly see a lot of them having been thrown out as I could easily see elderly relatives having some stashed around their house. If you're dealing with the death of a relative, most people aren't going to have the time to go through someone's book collection when you're trying to deal with the estate. You might eyeball the books to see if there's anything that might be collectible, but you're probably not going to go through a bunch of mystery novels where the deceased may have stashed some emergency traveler's checks. And, even if you do find a small amount of traveler's checks at a deceased relative's house, it's common to 'deal with them later.' Trying to cash $100 of traveler's checks from the 1970s that are signed by a deceased person may not be worth it for a lot of people.

We own a motel and cottage business on the east coast of Canada....... the ONLY customers we ever had that aid by travelers Chequers were a couple that came every year from FRANCE...... I think that is funny.

Eventually the banks that issued the traveler's checks will be required to turn the funds over to one or more of the 50 states as unclaimed property (rules vary by state). People will then be able to recover the funds directly from the state by checking the state's unclaimed property website and following the specified claims procedure. The banks, including AmEx, don't get to keep the funds forever. This may explain why some banks no longer cash traveler's checks - i.e. they've already transferred all the funds to one or more states.

The money paid for traveller checks was always immediately turned over to America Express or whatever the company was who had their name on it (Visa, Thomas Cook, and a few others). They were not issued with the selling bank's account number or routing info on them. The selling banks got a commission and that was it as far as their financial involvement. They aren't even actual checks as defined in the banking regulations. You purchased the guarantee that at some future point in time the company who has that money will pay it out to the person you name on the check. Buying traveller checks does not create an account anywhere with your name on it.

Banks don't want to deal with them anymore mainly because there are so many counterfeit ones floating around. They take the loss if they cash them and they are either counterfeit or were reported stolen or lost by the purchaser.

No traveller check ever issued that was not paid out will ever expire (barring major changes in banking law). There are still some out there from the 1800's that will pay just as much to the person cashing it as it would have back at issuance -- with no interest or adjustment reflecting the time that has gone by. If you do happen to have one of those uncashed checks, they would probably be worth a lot more to a collector than if you cashed it.

At the moment I don't have any old American Ex TC left. In 1992 I had bought $1500 in Am Ex TC, kept them around, had $1,100 left by 2009 or so, which at the time I needed more cash.

So, drawing on this reserve, I finally cashed them in at Bank of America, otherwise I would still have these nice looking checks.

While living in Spain in 1979 my parents came for a visit and had travelers checks. Everybody had forgotten about them, but when my father passed in 1998, all those unused travelers checks were in his dresser. No idea why he never cashed them in. As someone said, There must be millions worth still sittng hidden in dressers and closets.

I had $260 of twenty year old traveler's checks and a few months ago took them back to the same bank where I had purchased them. The bank refused to cash them (the young teller didn't know what they were). I learned Walmart and Publix (grocery chain) would accept them, although younger cashiers again did not know them. I spent them gradually buying groceries and felt slightly guilty, as if I was passing counterfeit bills.

I have a $3.50 admission ticket to Disneyland. It now costs around $120 to get into the park. I wonder if they would honor the ticket or just deduct the $3.50 from the admission? It might be worth more as a collector’s item. Anyone interested?

You don't have to cash Traveller's Checks, you can simply deposit them in your bank account like any other check. If your bank refuses the deposit, get a different bank.