Bank charges on cash withdrawals

Hi Guys,

Anyone know whats the cheapest bank for using a credit card for taking out cash abroad? Im heading away on a RTW and trying to figure whats the cheapest way to bring money with me. Id have the cash to put into any credit card before I left. At the minue I can still use my Irish credit card but they charge 3-4€ for withdrawing money. Im not too keen on travellers cheques.

How did all of you take money with you when travelling?, I can use either an Irish or a German Bank A/c.

Cheers

If its RTW, they are all going to charge that.
Unless you go for Citibank maybe.

Any reason for Citibank or just a random guess? I know Nationwide in the UK dont charge. Trying to find if there is a german or online equal

Deutsche bank have a deal with bank of America and maybe others...

TBH I wouldn't go through the hassle of oening a new bank account for a RTW trip.

TBH, I'd take a few hundred Euros in cash in various denominations, bank card and credit card.
As a wee precaution, what I'd do is say your main bank account is your German one.
Leave behind an Überweisungsschein with a friend to your Irish bank account for a few hundred Euros or so.

Then if your 1st bank card fails, ring them and tell them to post the form in the bank and use your 2nd card.

This is speaking from experience after my sparkasse card failed for NO reason in the middle of effin nowhere in Australia on two sperate trips.

I have my credit cards with Barclaycard and they offer one (a VISA) that you do not pay anything to get cash worldwide:


http://www.barclaycard.de/index.php3?page=...aycard_New_Visa

It is also free for a year, and if you have a turnover of €100 every month on average it stays free (according to their site, else it is €19/year).

By the way this is not really a bank account, just a credit card. You can technically use it to do transfers too but it's really expensive (at least on my account, but I have the one for students). You can also technically get a EC card, which seems to be free to get (probably have to pay to withdraw cash though) which might be a good thing to have as a backup. I have had my debit card (Deutsche Bank) fail me twice within a month, one time I was in London, the other time in Spain. Had to use my second (for another bank account) debit card or credit card. Both times they got demagnetized somehow (banker's guess is the magnet latch of my purse, and it must've been that, cannot think of anything else).

Deutsche Bank has deals with various banks abroad, Deutsche Bank in Spain, Barclays in the UK, Bank of America in the US, and others in other countries (but not in all). I did open my bank account with them before I moved to the US, and it proved very useful and does again now that I live in Spain, but I am a student with few financial obligations, so moving bank accounts is not that big a deal to me (I do not have any Dauerüberweisungen or Einzugsermächtigungen that I would have to cancel except one). I also do not mind having to plan ahead a little when it comes to getting cash from the ATM (DB is not around every corner in Spain). A credit card might be a better option for you because you could use every ATM of every bank worldwide.

DKB offers a free Visa card with worldwide free cash withdrawal http://www.dkb.de/privat/privat/dkb_cash.php

Depending on where you going, use travelers checks. They can be cashed in at no charge, an in most cases are treated as if they were cash. If your heading to any countries that use the below currency then pick some up.. You will also get a few cents more in the exchange rate from banks, that if you just got cash.

* Euro
* British Pound Sterling
* US Dollars
* Canadian Dollars
* Australian Dollars
* Japanese Yen

Travellers Checks are treated AS cash in the US for sure (or I've used them that way before) but are very old school (but not in a good way) elsewhere.
You will pay a charge to redeem them unless it is at a branch or agency of the issuing organisation.
Last time I bought them I still paid a few bucks charges.

I'd take maybe a couple to a few hundred if you were passing through the US, but probably better to take a bit in USD cash for incidentals and charge most stuff.

I'm with Marie-Claire, get yourself a Girokonto at DKB. I have their visa card. Works great. No strings attached. No fees. I guess the only drawback is the that you'll need to make sure there's enough money in the corresponding DKB Girokonto to cover your visa bill when it comes due or be prepared to fork out some pretty hefty interest.

I use my E.C. card all over the world where accepted.Have a basic charge of €5 per withdrawl.I always get the daily maximum amount out of the account and keep charges down.

one thing i haven't tried is using my german credit card at a supermarket in the u.s., and telling the cashier that it's a debit card, and then opting for getting cash back. i think it might work out to be a cheap cash withdrawl option, beating the high atm fees when using a german atm card.

just using the german credit card directly in the u.s. seems to get at least very close to the published exchange rate, with no other apparent direct fees involved in the transaction. using my german atm card at a supermarket in the u.s. and pushing the debit button got me a horrible rate plus fees.

edit: i'm not sure whether an offer of free cash withdrawls overseas considers the fees imposed by the actual overseas banks.

Partners are:

• Bank of America (USA)
• Barclays (United Kingdom, Kenya, Mauritius, Tanzania, Zimbabwe)
• BNP Paribas (France)
• Scotiabank (Canada, Jamaica, Chile, Mexico and many islands in the Carribean)
• Westpac (Australia and New Zealand)
• Deutsche Bank (Spain & Italy)

ATM locator for EC-Maestro card (in German) for all partners can be found here:
http://www.deutsche-bank.de/pbc/content/in...eutschland.html


Though Trinidad & Tobago and St. Lucia are included in the '32 countries'

Thanks for posting that, Jay. I tried finding a list last night but couldn't and then couldn't be arsed to keep looking; it was late.

Thanks Guys,

Some great answers in there. I must take a look into them now and see, DKB looks like a very good option along with DB. I intend to take some travellers cheque but mainly as a back up along with a mastercard and cash of course. Anymore suggestions are always welcome and I'll post my findings on here when I get around all the banks.