A good way to convert dollars to euros

[jss]

My wife and I spent two weeks between November and December in Spain and France for surgery/vacation. Anyone that's been to Europe is aware that changing dollars into euros at the airport will incur a 10% fee. So if you converted $2500 into euros, that would cost you an additional $250.

My sister lived in Germany and Italy for about ten years; she's married to a gypsy, I mean F-16 pilot. She told me how to get dollars converted to euros with zero cost. We followed her prescription on our recent two week outing to Europe and never paid anything to convert dollars to euros.

Simply put all of the money that you think you'll need for the trip into your state-side bank account that is attached to your ATM card. Then when you get to Europe, withdraw euros from your account at an ATM machine. Our bank (Chase) converted dollars from our account into euros at the current rate with no charge other than the $3 ATM usage fee. In all we we converted about $2000 to euros for less than $25. At the airport that would have cost $200.

[Justin]

Thanks for the helpful tip! We did the same thing on our most recent trip to Germany.

[Cindylou]

What a great tip. Thanks! I'll remember that.

[laid up doc]

how much can you generally get out at once in Europe? I'm going to need to pay for my apartment up front, in cash euros...

[jss]

Doc,

Our bank limited us to ... I believe it was $300 per day. I do not know if the ATM machines had a transaction or daily limit.

Good luck, Jeff

[ajj1001]

in the uk it's £250 or £300 per day

[laid up doc]

thanks guys... ya'll come through as usual! looks like i'm going to have to buy what i need here in euros and take it with me. i just checked the rates and it looks like i won't get totally raped on the exchange rate.

[laid up doc]

fwiw this is the best method in any country where you have access to ATM's. i did the same thing when in Costa Rica x4 and Mexico x1. this will be my first trip across the pond... i'm guessing it's nothing like Central America? haha!

next i gotta figure out how to convert Mexican Spanish to Spanish Spanish, and at least a bit of Catalan - food especially. my travel companion is a vegan...

[KBear]

On a daily ATM limit, I'm able to call my bank and have it changed if needed. It's default set at $300; but they have overridden that more than once with a phone call. You know that fun moment when you are trying to buy something, know you have plenty of money to pay for it and your debit card is being declined? Yeah, that is when I have called and found out I reached my daily limit, but they changed it no problem. They also told me that you can come in and have it permanently changed if needed. Now whether the overseas thing would change this, I don't know; but I'd ask. I'd suggest visiting the bank regardless before going overseas, so they don't think it's fraud and deny- that happened to us in the Bahamas and here we were trying to take the kids to Atlantis and had to spend time calling the bank and verifying it was us charging, then it worked. They told us then to just give them a heads up anytime we are going to go out of country or radically alter our spending habits.

[laid up doc]

I have traveled to Central America a few times - always have alerted ahead of time and had zero problems. Credit cards slap you w/ a 3% fee for international transactions (those ones on tv that say no fee have a high annual fee - mine are $0 annually), so usually I get out the max at the ATM and just carry what I need for incidentals.