ATM withdrawal overseas. WISE card

[+ tassojunior]

On 9/14/2022 at 12:44 PM, padel412 said:

Get a Schwab investor checking account. They reimburse all ATM fees and have no foreign transaction fees and no monthly fees or minimum balance. I believe my daily cash withdrawal limit is 1k USD, not sure whether that can be increased as I've never tried. 

I just had an ATM in Vienna charge me a $5 ATM fee, a $15 money exchange fee, and an exchange rate 15-20% below daily rate to change $100. 

[+ tassojunior]

3 minutes ago, mike carey said:

I assume you're talking about paying a foreign provider in US dollars rather than their local currency. That's fine if they have a use for the US dollars but if they don't they will end up paying their bank the conversion costs that you saved, and since they would be taking foreign currency (USD) into a bank they would receive the banknote rate of exchange and not the better ATM/electronic conversion rate you would likely get. Bottom line, ask them, and if you want to pay in USD accept the rate they quote. The USD may be a default global currency but for anyone selling goods and services where it is not also the local currency, accepting payment in USD or any foreign currency can be a PITA. (Of course if it's a country where there are 'official' and black market rates they may well prefer USD, but that appears not to be the premise of your question!)

Your friends who seem to operate routinely across CZK, (SKK?), EUR, CHF and USD would, I'm sure, be happy for a client to pay them in USD but others are likely to be happy with only local and neighbouring currencies.

Of course if they were a foreign provider in the US, I'd expect them to take payment (and quote their price) in US dollars.

Yes, in Europe, where there's money changers on every other corner, I've found it's a PITA to research which is the best but the guys always know the best ones. And in Argentina they'd much prefer dollars. I always carry 4 or 5 thousand cash for emergencies anyway.

The guys are happy to take 15-20% more in dollars and I get the satisfaction of depriving some rip-off bank of it's fees (including the one back home charging excess money change fees back). Plus traveling CH, CZ, EU and UK involves 4 currencies. That's a lot of money exchanges and it wore me out . Ben Franklins always work and everything else goes on good cards. I know most of my regulars as friends for a long time so that part's casual. But I haven't had any new meet (!) turn down 15-20% more in dollars surprisingly.

And sometimes an emergency is Tomas Fuk all tanned and super-shredded from a month at the gym at Up on a Saturday afternoon. No time for ATM's.