ATM & credit cards in Italy

There was a thread on this subject not too long ago. You might be able to scroll down and pick it up. I believe that the essence was that normal ATM machines in Europe work just fine with U.S. credit cards. We went though Italy and Switzerland 6 months ago and ours worked just fine. As for a limit, we had one also even though we notified our banks before departing. They say your bank can make it higher but we still were limted to under 250 Euro. This was fine for us but may not be for others.

Thanks, Larry...250 euros would be plenty for us also. On some trips, when renting, we've had to pay in cash (as in Switzerland); & we've found some small hotels (in Venice, e.g.) that give 10% discount for cash. I was mainly concerned about this computer chip thing, though. Apparently it's not much of an issue, but I will check back through previous threads for more info.

Jean,
There are two limits. One is the amount that you can withdraw per day and this is set by your bank. The second is the transaction limit set by the machine you use. A 250 euro transaction limit is common but I regularly withdraw 500 euro in one transaction. If the bankomat will not let me withdraw 500 euro in one transaction I just make two withdrawals at 250 euro.

You cannot exceed your bank's daily limit but you can perform multiple transactions. You can request that your bank increase your daily limit.

There is no screen to choose checking or savings, it comes out of checking.

But if you have online banking, you can do internet transfers from savings to checking if necessary.

just a quick tip that some ATMs won't accept a PIN that is longer than 4 digits.