International ATM Card

March 23, 2009 6:01 PM

What is the best credit/ATM card to use overseas?

I will be traveling to Europe in May and, after calling Chase, I found out that each ATM transaction will haveat least $6 in fees. There has to be a better option. I have read around and know that Capital One has no currency conversion fees which is nice, but can I use a Capital One card at an ATM? What other options do I have?

posted by sciencemandan to travel & transportation (19 comments total)

FlyerTalk's wiki on this.
posted by sharkfu at 6:06 PM on March 23

My personal preference for is Capital One for a credit card and a Schwab High Yield Investor Savings Account ATM card for getting cash.
posted by sharkfu at 6:10 PM on March 23

Also please note that many countries' networks will not accept PIN codes that are longer than 4 characters in length. I have no idea if European networks do, but found out the hard way that several Asian countries don't.
posted by benzenedream at 6:13 PM on March 23

sharkfu,

Awesome! Just what I was looking for! I was just about to ask if anyone had any experience with ING Direct, but I see that the site you posted has that.

Thanks!
posted by sciencemandan at 6:14 PM on March 23

You could get cash an ATM from a Capital One credit card but you'll pay a cash advance fee and interest from the second you make the withdrawal that could eat into any savings on the fee.

The best bet is to limit your cash withdrawals with your ATM so get a lot of cash each time. I was used to taking out just a few bucks at a time when at home, I had to learn to get money for the week at once when traveling.

Bank of America's debit card is free of fees from certain banks:
Barclays (United Kingdom)
BNP Paribas (France)
Deutsche Bank (Germany)

I was able to hunt around and find these ATMs when I was in Europe. It doesn't help when you're in a county not on the list, but it helps.
posted by birdherder at 6:18 PM on March 23

Quick question regarding the Paypal Debit Card (if anyone has used it): do you have to have funds in your Paypal account or does it withdraw from your checking whenever you use the card?
posted by sciencemandan at 6:36 PM on March 23

Quick question regarding the Paypal Debit Card (if anyone has used it): do you have to have funds in your Paypal account or does it withdraw from your checking whenever you use the card?


Do I need to have a PayPal balance to use the PayPal Debit Card?

When you pay using your PayPal Debit Card, funds in your PayPal account are used first. You can select a backup funding source for your debit card to cover the purchase if the amount exceeds your available balance.
link
posted by special-k at 6:42 PM on March 23

You should also check out local banks in your town. My local bank rebates all ATM fees at the end of the month, and does not charge any foreign exchange premium for using its Mastercard in another country. Local banks have to compete for business with banking chains and internet banking. You can get some good deals and will be supporting a local business. (I also get 4% interest on my checking account.)
posted by Joleta at 8:50 PM on March 23

I've been pleased with USAA, but I've only used them in Canada.
posted by oaf at 5:08 AM on March 24

Be aware of depending on the paypal debit card as your only source of cash. My brother used that while traveling overseas and had several days when he couldn't access his money at all. (Apparently their security had flagged his transactions as suspicious, but they weren't accepting phone calls over the weekend. Or something.) I'll refer him to this thread so he can tell the whole story.
posted by wyzewoman at 7:16 AM on March 24

Also if you're planning on following birdherder's advice keep in mind that Deutsche Bank ATMs only work with mastercard. If you had a BofA visa debit you'd be out of luck. And yeah you need a 4 digit pin in Europe.
posted by sero_venientibus_ossa at 7:39 AM on March 24

You should also check out local banks in your town.

Seconded. My tiny local bank charges 1% foreign currency fee, and breaks it out as a fee, while HSBC charges 3%. Even if I use the HSBC ATMs. (Everyone used to be 1%, but it seems like the big banks try to align their fees and the small banks don't bother to keep up.)

Also, since it's strictly percentage based, it doesn't matter if you make large transactions or small transactions. On a recent trip to Argentina I made a ton of 90 peso ($25) withdrawals to avoid getting the dreaded unchangeable 100 peso note.
posted by smackfu at 8:07 AM on March 24

Seconding the local bank recommendation. When I traveled in France I used the debit/ATM card from my local credit union to get cash, usually a couple hundred euros at a time. I called the credit union before I left on my trip to alert them that I would be traveling abroad so they wouldn't flag foreign transactions as fraud. I didn't have any problems, and the exchange fees were minimal (if any). May have been something like 1%.

Though I used cash for most everything, I did use my Capital One credit card for making retail purchases on a few occasions. Again, I alerted their customer service in advance of my travels. The trickiest part was the fact that most places around France expected credit cards to have an embedded smart card chip, and were thrown for a loop when I had to use the magnetic swipe instead.
posted by Nothlit at 8:54 AM on March 24

I'm with Sharkfu. I use the Schwab ATM card and the Cap One credit card when overseas. Great combo. Just be sure to pay off the Cap One card quickly, as their interest rates are high.
posted by QIbHom at 11:27 AM on March 24

Just to follow up on my sister's comment...

A couple years back I lost my wallet (including my bank ATM card) right before leaving for two months in Central America, and so trying to be creative I took my PayPal debit card figuring I could just use that like I would use my normal bank card. It worked fine for the first month, until one night out of the blue I found myself unable to pay for my hotel as PayPal had locked my account due to "suspicious activity".

Several phone calls back to the states later, I discovered that they 1) had no 800 number that me (or my parents back in the states trying to act on my behalf) could contact -- they only accepted inquiries over email and 2) the customer service office that had the power to unlock my account was closed for the weekend, and 3) once they opened again they were only willing to unlock my account if they received proof of identification via certified mail. Needless to say, this was all a big pain in the ass for me to orchestrate from Guatemala, and it took more than a week for me to get access to my money again.

So the moral here is that if you do take your PayPal card, at the vary least notify them that you will be traveling beforehand and have another method of getting cash so your not 100% dependant on it.

(this was all a couple of years ago as well, so they may have improved their customer service operations since then....I certainly hope they have!)
posted by dyslexictraveler at 1:37 PM on March 24

Thanks again guys for all of the help.

I have looked into Schwab and I may end up opening an account with them. Is there a reason you'd recommend the savings and not the checking? I noticed something with the checking about opening a brokerage account (which is not something I'm interested), but it seems that there are no brokerage requirements on that.

I'm just curious, since it seems like it would be easiest just to use Schwab for both credit card and ATM transactions.
posted by sciencemandan at 9:06 PM on March 24

@sciencemandan--

I was wrong, I actually have a Schwab Bank Investor Checking. When I joined there was no brokerage requirement too. Overall I've been very happy with it-- great phone customer service, free checks, the ATM card came fast.

If I have one complaint it's that the website is a little busy-- too many rows of tabs for my taste. I guess a lot of their customers like the research options and brokerage stuff. Wish they had a simplified UI mode option. And I believe I had a minor hiccup at the start where my funding money went into the brokerage side and not the checking side. That was probably my fault; I just thought I should give you a heads up. After I noticed my error I was able to move the funds across fairly easily.

Anyway, have a great trip.
posted by sharkfu at 9:32 PM on March 24

@sharkfu

Would you see any problems with using the Schwab debit card for purchases as opposed to using a separate credit card? (Other than the possibility of overdrafting.)
posted by sciencemandan at 8:42 AM on March 25

sciencemandan:
Would you see any problems with using the Schwab debit card for purchases as opposed to using a separate credit card? (Other than the possibility of overdrafting.)


In reality you probably wouldn't have any problems but here are my two thoughts:

-I prefer to spread out my purchases over separate corporations in case any one fraud department ignores my "I'm going overseas!" call and is overly zealous in protecting me.

-In terms of fraud, I've always gotten the feeling it's easier to get the bank's help when it's their money that's been stolen (credit card) and not your money that's been stolen (debit card). I have no idea if that has any basis in truth or if it's just my weird paranoia, but I mostly prefer to use credit cards for purchases and debit cards for cash withdrawal only (instead of withdrawal + debit purchases).

Like I said, you'll probably be fine (especially since Schwab is a good company) but that's how I've set it up for myself...
posted by sharkfu at 3:38 PM on March 25 [1 favorite has favorites]