Cash or Credit SPB

Just trying to get a feel for whether there is an advantage or disadvantage to paying SPB with cash or credit in St. Petersburg. I see the disadvantages of cash is having to carry large sums to Europe and the disadvantage of credit is the possibility of the card being compromised. I am leaning towards credit.

I assumed you meant to ask making payment for your tours booked with SPB and not general spending in St. Petersburg. If so, you have the disadvantages right. I had the same debate as you before I set off. In the end, I paid with cash because at least I felt that it is under my control to ensure the large sum of cash I am carrying around is safe (had a money belt hidden under my clothes) vs. possibility of the card being compromised (at the mercy of who ever is handling my credit card info). If I recall correctly, 5 parties out of 6 paid in cash, one with credit on my tour.

My private tour company (TJ Travel) gave us a discount if paying in cash...you might want to check with yours.

Thanks for clarifying cwsho8. That was exactly my question. I was leaning towards credit because if SPB Tours was compromising cards, we would have heard about it on cc by now. Your rationale for cash also makes sense> Let's see what some others say.

We used our credit card to pay for our SPB tour package. No problems. We've been home a year now, and there is no evidence of any misdeeds so far. We just didn't want to convert large sums of cash (for a fee) and worry about carrying it around.

We did tip in cash - a combination of Euros and dollars, as I remember - with separate envelopes for the driver and the quide, who were excellent, by the way. We enjoyed our tour immensely. Satisfied customers are the lifeblood of the tour operators.

As far as I can tell, SPB is one of the established, respected companies to do business with in the Baltics. I think they will do everything they can to protect their customers' information. Anything less would be disastrous for them.

SPB's credit card form says to tell your credit card company that you will be making this charge. Did you do that?

We used TJ Tours and did as babr. We had a few rubles for small souvenirs as well. Lunch and dinner were paid by credit card.

Where we live it is hard to get foreign currency and very difficult to exchange it back to dollars, so did all of our large purchases with credit card. Aside from a few street vendors in Copenhagen and Stockholm, it was never a problem.

I don't remember seing that on the form. In any event, we did not notify the credit card company. We had already been informed by Chase that it was not necessary, perhaps because the Sapphire card with cihip-and-signature technology is designed for travel.

We also like the Chase Sapphire because it does not charge a fee for foreign transactions, and we get double points for travel expenses which we have used very effectively by transferring them to United. By coverting the points to miles and combining them with our FF miles, we've been able to pay for all of our air travel.

However, if you are using a different brand, it would be a good idea to notify them. We always did in the past.

Adding another question here: what currency does SPB charge the CC in? My reading leads me to believe rubles (i.e. they would take the price of our tour quoted in US$, convert to rubles that day and charge that to the credit card, with your credit card company then converting?. Just want to figure out if it's better for me to convert Cdn $ to US$ to pay cash or if it would actually work better to have the rubles charged to a Canadian credit card.

My info says that SPB charges the cc in rubles.

Our credit card was charged in rubles. With the exchange rate shown on our cc statement, it came out to be 41 cents more than the price quoted when we booked - pretty darn close. We had booked three cities - 2 days in St. Petersburg plus Helsinki and Stockholm - for $910. Credit card charge was $910.41.

We notify our credit card companies of our exact itineraries when we travel. Plus we travel with at least two different cards. And cash is locked up until we need it. Not a big deal. And paying with cash just eases our fear of credit compromise.

Our friends unknowingly had their card number stolen precruise in Fort Lauderdale, so when they went to use their card at their third port of call it was already frozen. The thieves tried charging things online.. mostly computers and tech equip. Since this card is their "travel only" card, the attempted purchases were out of the realm of "normal " purchases, plus the card was being used in a city it wasn't supposed to be. Thus it was red flagged and frozen. Luckily they had another card on hand to take over.

We'll pay US cash for our SPG tours.

We used our credit card to pay for our SPB tour package. No problems. We've been home a year now, and there is no evidence of any misdeeds so far. We just didn't want to convert large sums of cash (for a fee) and worry about carrying it around.

 

We did tip in cash - a combination of Euros and dollars, as I remember - with separate envelopes for the driver and the quide, who were excellent, by the way. We enjoyed our tour immensely. Satisfied customers are the lifeblood of the tour operators.

 

As far as I can tell, SPB is one of the established, respected companies to do business with in the Baltics. I think they will do everything they can to protect their customers' information. Anything less would be disastrous for them.

We were in St. Peterburg two weeks ago and used SPB. We paid w/CC and tipped in U.S. Dollars.

Everything worked out fine. Just be cognizant that the exchange rate may be different, the actual day your CC is charged. We paid more than was quoted. Depending on the exchange rate the day of the charge, however, you could pay less.

Probably should ask SPB. good question ...

Adding another question here: what currency does SPB charge the CC in? My reading leads me to believe rubles (i.e. they would take the price of our tour quoted in US$, convert to rubles that day and charge that to the credit card, with your credit card company then converting?. Just want to figure out if it's better for me to convert Cdn $ to US$ to pay cash or if it would actually work better to have the rubles charged to a Canadian credit card.

Probably should ask SPB. good question ...

I actually found a better way - I can add US$ OBC to our Royal Caribbean reservation at only a 10% exchange rate on the Canadian $ (it's currently at 25%), so I have added enough credit there to take out cash to pay SPB. :D

Not sure what you mean Katherine. Can you see your OBC now? When I called RC they told me I get on board credit when I get on the ship (which is why I cannot reserve specialty dinning right now since I have to pay right away). Can you on board credit to pay SPB?

I actually found a better way - I can add US$ OBC to our Royal Caribbean reservation at only a 10% exchange rate on the Canadian $ (it's currently at 25%), so I have added enough credit there to take out cash to pay SPB. :D

You can call Royal Caribbean Gifts and add onboard credit to your account. Assuming you paid for the cruise with US$, they charge you in US$. But because I paid for my cruise in Canadian $ through Royal Caribbean International, I get charged for that US$ onboard credit in Canadian $. And their exchange rate for that purchase is very favourable for us Canadians. So I can add US$ onboard credit to my acount, then take it out in cash from Guest Services, and I'll use the cash to pay for SPB. It's very confusing, I know, but it's pretty significant savings for us Canadians as our $ is sucking these days.

On our cruise they were charging you a percentage to take your onboard credit in cash. That would eat up the savings talked about earlier

There are various threads on this, including a very long one marked "Canadian cruisers!" on the Royal Caribbean forum, but my understanding is that the casino will charge you 5% to take out your cash, but they will not charge you if you have a cash account (i.e. no credit card linked to your account).

Again, I am not suggesting you can use your onboard credit to pay SPB, just that I have found a way thanks to CruiseCritic to save a bit on brutal exchange rates. I will still print the SPB credit card payment form just in case there are difficulties getting cash from the ship, or if it's not in "crisp bills".

Spb take both. We paid cash as we're not from the USA and were carrying dollars. Next year were using a card

Used my card last week with no problem.