Travel Currency In Europe

[TxStHorn]

Am going to Greece in July for my honeymoon, and haven't been to Europe in 12 years.

What's the best/safest way to carry/use currency these days?

Are traveler's checks still a good way to go? Credit Cards?

Should I just find a place with a good exchange rate and exchange (some, not all, of course) in actual cash?

 

[bandrew]

Greece uses the Euro. You will get the best exchange through your bank, so use your credit card as much as possible. Check with you bank to make sure they won't charge any fees first, but you should be able to use an ATM to get cash. Someone please let me know if this is wrong, but I think that most European banks do not charge any ATM fees.

 

[EuroHorn]

ATM and credit cards are the best way to go. You will get a decent exchange rate by using your ATM and you will find them all over Europe. You will get charged a fee by your bank on each transaction (I think it was about $2 at BoA). By the way the Euro is really getting strong now so hopefully when you go it will weaken a little.

 

[MAROON]

ATM. DO NOT use travellers checks unless you want to spend one day of your trip trying to get them cashed.

 

[iamtigerwoods]

Be sure to give a call to your bank and credit card companies letting them know where you are going and when. Many issues will not allow your card to be used overseas without speaking with you first...

 

[TXHookem]

Have ATM card, will travel.

 

[Napoleon]

I have a B of A account.

You get charged $5.00 for each withdrawl from B of A and another ~$2.50 from the ATM you use!!

I just went to Europe and was warned of this by other travellers on my trip. I had no choice, so I withdrew large amounts as infrequently as possible. But the exchange rate was good.

Now I am in Buenos Aires. I opened a CitiBank account because they have them in the States where I live and they have them here in BsAs. I don't get a withdrawal penalty however, they supposedly take a 3% transaction fee on the money I withdraw.

 

[waazel]

This was 7 years ago, but I bank with B of A and called them ahead of time to make sure I wouldn't have any problems using ATM's over there - "no problem at all" I was told.

As soon as I get there - no dice on the ATM's. So I try a few and after a couple of days I connect with B of A and they tell me it's because I have a 5 digit PIN and Euro ATM's use 4 digits. From then on, I had to go inside a bank to withdraw funds - it wasn't THAT big of a deal, just had to make sure I didn't leave myself short before the weekend and whatnot.

That 4 versus 5 digit thing was probably some BS response by the customer service person, but thought I'd throw it out there for you as something to check on.