Cash vs Travelers Checks

[Steviewonder1]

In another 5 years or less when the US adopts Chip and Pin Cards for ATM and banks, travelers checks will be dead. They are already going out of style as I said earlier. The further you get away from an English Speaking country as a second language the less they are taken unless you stumble on a major Hotel company. On the ships they are still taken on most but that will also stop soon. YMMV.

[Hlitner]

Location : Funchal, Portugal.

 

Scene : long queue moving v-e-r-y slowly. Cruise ship passengers trying to exchange their US dollars into Euro.

 

Climax : after long 45 minutes in the queue, an elderly couple finally come to the front. The cashier sinply said, sorry we cannot accept traveller's cheques. Cash only.

 

So where to cash in?

 

Further down, 2 blocks.

 

But we just have been there, they said no, and directed us to come here.

 

Moral of the story : hard cash is cash.

 

Sent using Tapatalk. Sorry for typho.

 

There are lots of ATMs in Funchal and they work quite well. Never had to wait in a queue to use them.

 

Hank

[sullaRaffaello]

Is this a thread from 1965? Why on earth wouldn't one just register a credit card for on board purchases? For the minimal cash that might be needed on shore, just use a fee free ATM card whether for US or foreign currency. For purchases in foreign currency, use a Capital One credit card. Capital One does not charge a foreign exchange fee. In 2014, cash should be minimal, and travellers' checks are dinosaurs.

[navybankerteacher]

More and more European stores are reluctant to cash travelers checks, and those that do will most likely give you a far less favorable exchange rate ($ into local currency) than would a local bank's ATM. ATM's generally give most favorable rates and many US banks will waive their fees and, in fact, reimburse you for the fees charged by the local bank - UBS gives up to $3 reimbursement.

 

Cunard no longer cashes travelers checks on board, and I suspect that other lines will follow suit.

 

Given the alternatives I suspect travelers checks will vanish in the next few years as unneeded. It is too bad, because I liked carrying them as a reserve - and to avoid large sums of cash on board ship, but I finally cashed all of mine a couple of months ago.

[Mommags123]

We recently ( 6/7/14) went to our credit union for traveler's checks because we are going to a few international ports and we didn't want to use our credit card.

 

Credit union says they don't even sell the travelers checks anymore.

So we took out the cash we planned on buying the checks with and headed off to our AAA office.

 

AAA says they don't even sell the travelers checks anymore.

 

Both places offered prepaid debit cards.

 

My concern with that was paying a cash advance fee to use my own money if I wanted cash.....

 

So we kept the cash we got from the bank.

[navybankerteacher]

We recently ( 6/7/14) went to our credit union for traveler's checks because we are going to a few international ports and we didn't want to use our credit card.

 

Credit union says they don't even sell the travelers checks anymore.

So we took out the cash we planned on buying the checks with and headed off to our AAA office.

 

AAA says they don't even sell the travelers checks anymore.

 

Both places offered prepaid debit cards.

 

My concern with that was paying a cash advance fee to use my own money if I wanted cash.....

 

So we kept the cash we got from the bank.

 

Depending on how much cash you are taking, it could be a risky option. Also, if you exchange $US overseas you will pay a fairly steep penalty. You might want to re-deposit most of the cash in your bank A/C and then hit ATM's overseas as necessary - for local currency. That would be safer than carrying a lot of cash and would get you the best exchange rate. If you were to withdraw from your bank A/C at an ATM, there would not be any cash advance fees - just the local bank's $2 or $3 charge (which your bank might even refund).