<p>DD will be in London for her semester abroad. We thought an easy & efficient means of paying would be a credit/debit card, but they have fees for each foreign transaction. DD uses a debit card now. There was a informative article in Kiplingers, June 2010, "Cut the fees overseas", pg.70, however your experience would be valuable to know the pitfalls and the roads around them.</p>
<p>Just read the Kiplinger article – it’s very good and covers the main points. When D was in Israel last year, we used a reloadable debit card. She did pay ATM transaction fees when she got cash but not when she used it in shops/restaurants. Her friend had a B of A debit card and they do have reciprocal agreements all over the world – in the UK, it’s with Barclay’s.</p>
<p>You can find a few banks or credit unions with favorable foreign (out-of-the-US, not just not-part-of-that-bank) ATM charges. D just took out about 150 euros each time, and paid cash for what she bought. By getting a larger chunk of cash the fee was a much smaller percentage. Many places where she was didn’t accept debit or credit transactions. Cash was necessary, particularly if eating at inexpensive cafes or restaurants. (I guess the expensive places were more likely to take it, but she wasn’t eating in those kinds of restaurants.)</p>
<p>We also set her up with an Amex card on our account, and a pin for her to be able to draw against it – more expensive, but we thought of it as an emergency access. She never needed to use it.</p>
<p>I had a tough trip to France at one point when my ATM card (which I was relying on to get cash) did not work, even though I had advised my bank that I was going there before leaving. Luckily, Amex was still allowing you to cash checks at their offices (don’t know if that’s available any more) and I was able to get cash that way. But ever since I’ve been unwilling to venture abroad without two different sources of cash.</p>
<p>Try Capital One, When D and I traveled a few years ago to France, there was no foreign transaction fees</p>
<p>My credit union has very low fees on both its debit card and Visa and we have used both on many trips to Europe. My daughters had no problem using either on their school trips as well. Do not use one of the ‘reloadable’ Visa or AMEX cards - they are a major ripoff with fees - both per use and FOREX. If you (parent) are a signer on their accounts, you can both transfer money into their account as needed and deal with any banking issues which may come up while they are abroad.</p>
<p>Charles Schwab has low or no-fee cards tied to their money market accounts. Capital One (US card only) is also favored for it’s fee structure.</p>
<p>Anyone know how much the ATM charges are? My son is going on study abroad next month. Any other ideas to help reduce fees? Thanks!</p>
<p>As scro14 said, if you find a reciprocal bank (i.e. B of A would be Barclays in England, BNP in France, etc.), aka an “atm alliance” you are not paying a transaction fee. But you are getting the bank exchange rate, which is very good. Bank of America has info re: reciprocal foreign banks on their website, and I’m sure other banks do as well.</p>
<p>Having said that, B of A and other banks as of last year considered (and are permitted under the latest edition of their terms of agreement – you know, those little bits of paper you get in with the monthly statement that have ant-size printing) charging a 1% “fee” of the amount taken out. Didn’t happen anywhere I went last September (I was all over France), but thought I’d mention that as a caveat.</p>
<p>There used to be a fairly standard exchange fee of 1% on Visa purchases, but that may have changed. I would advise that you set aside an hour or so to call all of your credit card companies and banks to find out exactly what each of them charges. The last time we were abroad, the exchange fees and ATM charges were different for each one of them. We were able to plan accordingly.</p>
<p>If you can go the Bank of America route do it. We did this when we lived in China - through China Construction Bank Atms. You still pay the conversion fee but we found it to be about the same as Chase Bank where our other account was. Chase allowed one free ATM withdrawl a month.<br>
When we lived in England 12 years ago we found a loophole with Visa which they may have fixed now. We could walk into the local Barclay’s Bank branch in our village and do a cash advance on our Visa ATM card that was fee free. You had to do it in person but there was no charge and a good exchange rate. We also had a local Barclays account so maybe that was why it was fee-free on their end but we could never figure out why we were not charged by our US bank or by Visa. It only worked as a cash advance.</p>
<p>ditto Capitol One Venture Card…no foreign transaction fees…</p>
<p>For credit transactions, use a Capitol One card, as suggested above.</p>
<p>For debit (cash withdrawals) all over the world, I would suggest looking into a PNC Bank checking account. We found one type of free account, where if you keep a minimum balance of $3,000, you will not be charged any transaction fees at all. If you keep a minimum balance of $2,000, you will be charged transaction fees but they will be returned into your account at the end of the month.</p>
<p>We set up an account like this for our daughter for her study abroad last year. I would periodically check the balance online and if it got too close to the $2,000 minimum, I would put more money in.</p>
<p>My daughter is back at her home college in the US, but we’ve kept the account for convenience. She uses it for ATM cash withdrawals and debit purchases at supermarkets, etc., and sure enough, all the fees are credited back at the end of the month.</p>
<p>My daughter is finishing a gap year in London. When I was trying to figure this out last summer, I discovered quite by accident, that TD bank does not charge international fees on their debit cards. So, that is how we handled getting cash to her. She also uses it as a credit card when needed.
She does have a backup credit card which does charge international fees.</p>
<p>You can get a reloadable travel money card from AAA. You load it in Euro’s or Pounds and use it as a Visa Card.
You can load the card when you leave and reload it later either from abroad or stateside.
[Travel</a> Money Card ?Carry your Foreign Currency Safely with Travelex Cash Passport Card](<a href=“http://www.cashpassport.com%5DTravel”>http://www.cashpassport.com)</p>