A sure-fire way to avoid those hefty exchange rate fees
It hardly seems to make sense. Standing in line at a foreign airport to exchange American currency for local notes. On top of your wait, you’ll probably pay a hefty fee for the exchange service and of course any coins you have on you now become worthless since exchange desks won’t honor them. Once you’ve completed your transaction, you’re finally free to begin your trip…that is until you run out of cash and have to go through the entire process again…but I have a trick that works every time.
Use your ATM card to extract cash. Your ATM card probably has the Visa or Master Card logo which can be used at most money machines. Be sure to look on the back of your card for the correct system (e.g. Cirrus system).
On a recent trip to Australia, this is how I paid for everything and in the end, my bill showed no sign of a fee for this service!
Please keep in mind each creditor is different, so you will want to call them before you try this. If going out of the country, you’ll need to call them anyway, so they don’t think your card is being used fraudulently.
