credit cards or $$ for RO tour?

[crazy4cruisn]

WE are considering using our credit card for the Red October tour so we don't have to carry the cash. What have you done? How much was added to the total when you got your credit card statement?

thanks,

Nan

[JodiBB]

We are scheduled for an RO tour next month and we're going to bring cash. I've been told that there is a surcharge that RO will place on your CC to compensate for their charges + your CC company will charge you for converting from Rubles to USD. Paying in USD will prevent all of these extraneous charges.

[crazy4cruisn]

I have heard that too but was just wondering if the charge would be worth not bothering with carrying the cash? Just wondered what others were doing. I need to figure out what the charges will be...........

[ElleninNY]

RO places no surcharge. Just the charge from the credit card company which varies from bank to bank. They do not take Amex, by the way.

[aqua]

Pay in cash if you can. The fees that the banks add for Russian transactions are expensive. I can't remember the exact figure, but I was surprised at how much we had to pay in addition to the cost of the tour. We were not charged the large fees in England, France, or any other country except Russia. You can email Red October and ask if you can pay the morning of the first day. That way you don't have to carry cash around with you.

[ekp]

How are travelers checks treated? Are travelers checks the same as paying with cash?

 

Westerdam, August 29 Baltic cruise:)

[mycruz]

How are travelers checks treated? Are travelers checks the same as paying with cash?

 

Westerdam, August 29 Baltic cruise:)

 

I don't recommend travlers checks. I did see someone attempting to make a transaction in a shop and they were told they would not accept.

[dileep]

The converted the $ amount into rubles by multiplying by 30. Will check my credit card statement to see what the ended up being.

[Call me Ishmael]

Dileep is correct and Mycruz is correct. If you email RO, they will tell you the payments they will accept. They will not accept travelers checks.

 

Our portion owed to RO was $700. This was converted to roubles at 30 to the dollar by RO and the sum of 21,000 roubles was run through on our credit card. THe roubles were then changed back to dollars by our credit card (at ~28.52) and resulted in an actual charge of $736.37 or about 5% higher. This particular card does not tack on an additional charge, but many do, some as much as 3%.

 

The figure of 30 is higher than the commercial rate, but lower than the rate charged by another store in St.Pb which charged 32 R. to the dollar. However, the othe store discounted the price by 10% which effectively negated the higher exchange rate.

 

You should contact your credit card company to find out the surcharge for a foreign currency transaction. You should also email RO to see if they are willing to provide the exchange rate to be used for your transaction. As the dollar strengthens they may need to raise their rate to cover their own bank costs.

 

Clearly you will be better off in any case paying by cash. Only you can decide if the extra cost outweighs the convenience of plastic. In my case I used plastic because we were traveling on our own before the cruise which necessitated carrying additional cash in local currency.

 

CMI

[crazy4cruisn]

Thanks for the very explicit information! I think we will carry cash!

Only 12 more days!!

Nan

[localady]

Have a great cruise! :D

 

We will be using RO on July 30th. After reading this, I guess we too will be carrying cash. With 2 days worth of touring and tips, that is alot of cash to be carrying over and above our usually travel cash! :eek:

[SCDH]

We paid for the tour with cash. My husband kept it in his money pouch around his neck. He paid for souvenirs with credit. We probably should have used cash for that, too. The prices were in euros, which were then changed to rubles. 'don't know how it will come out, since we just got back. I paid cash for a box that was marked 9 euros, and the store took 9 dollars.

[JodiBB]

I paid cash for a box that was marked 9 euros, and the store took 9 dollars.

 

You got away cheap as the Euro is stronger than the USD!!

[2martini]

we used a VISA card last week at RO and the rate seemed OK; don't know the fees if any. Convenience is worth it, I think, as well as not worrying about losing cash along the way. Also you may have few chances to buy anything except in the shops and they will take dollars. We also had our guide change small amounts for us so we could buy a bottle of water, etc.