We took 4 different cards with us to Europe, and wound up using the one we didn't plan on using, just because it had the most reliable tap function. Tap is everything in Europe, especially at kiosks
You are crushing it recently! My parents are taking their first trip to Europe in October and I keep sending them your videos. I’m trying to keep the potential culture shock to a minimum. Keep up the great work!
Judging from my own experiences in the last 12 months and from comments on this video entered by other people, the most important advice from Mark is at 9m 18s. Make sure you take a card with you, and make sure that it is contactless - (ie has the Wifi symbol on it). Many businesses in Europe, even in GERMANY, are 'cash free'. It is one of their contractual terms that they only accept payment by card (or by bank credit transfer).
We just got back from a month in Europe and the UK, covering 6 countries. In my experience, an ATM powered by Euronet should be avoided. The exchange rate is not favorable. And I echo the comments made that many places are cashless. You don't need to have an Oyster card in London if you have a contactless pay option or something like Apple Pay. The Oyster card is still available and I used one I bought 6 years ago.
@@ChapatiMan In the past I would just say Europe. However, some of my UK colleagues told me they think of the UK as separate from Europe. Just trying to be respectful.
@Morahman7vnNo2 the uk is obviously still in Europe, because that’s the continent. The uk left the European Union, which is a group of European countries working together and they set rules together and trade together and stuff. Some idiots think that the uk literally left the continent of Europe. I have no clue how people think that
I’d like to add that, once in a blue moon, you might find an ATM, or train kiosk, that won’t say “English.” They will have a list of country flags, to choose from, that represent a language. In that case, you want to choose the British flag (🇬🇧).
@@jendorei , you’re obviously not from America. I’ve actually stood by a kiosk and overheard a first time overseas traveler, from the U.S., say “Where’s the American flag?”
Hey Mark, My US bank card had a chip, but no tap feature, when I went to the Czech Republic. NO. BANK. MACHINE. OR. BANK. WOULD. EVEN. RECOGNIZE. MY. CARD. Fortunately I had a European card from my bank in Tbilisi. Or I would have been SOL. My Alaskan bank has no immediate plans to add such a feature. Just sayin'. I'll be in Germany soon. So we'll see what it looks like there. My card works fine back in Georgia (NOT THE US STATE). Thanks for the tips. Remember travelers checks?
I think the problem was something else, not the lack of a tap feature. If you put the card into a chip reader, it obviously won’t check for the tap feature, lol. I know banks here in Poland disable your magnet strip by default and you have to ask them to enable it if you need to use it (it’s unsafe - easy to skim and steal your info). Perhaps your chip could be disabled too? There are also different card operators. The ones mostly accepted globally are Visa and MasterCard, as mentioned in the video. If your provider was American Express or something else, it might have
If you travel a lot, then I'll look into setting up a small checking account with a bigger bank then. Bank of America, Chase, ect. All of which offer the tap on their cards, or you can use your phone.
ALWAYS..bring a copy of your ATM card (duplicate). Some ATM's utilize the "capture" of the card feature, where the machine swallows the card and spits it out once the transaction is done, etc. However, when using one of them in Germany, the language on the screen was German and I couldn't figure out how to change it before it "timed out", and the machine retain my card, leaving me stranded for a week without being able to get cash! Always bring a duplicate!
if something is not working, try hitting the red button multiple times. It's quite standard all over the place, even if individual ATMs can differ ever so slightly.
These days, most ATMs support tap feature, so you don’t need to put your card anywhere (and if you can add your debit card to Apple/Google Pay, you can use your phone/watch)
Thank you for your time and posting. Good info. I had a Finnish girlfriend when I was traveling through Spain and Portugal in 1977. If you are reading this, I am so sorry I broke up with you before we arrived in Paris. ;)
I haven't checked recently but AAA used to offer a money pack for going abroad, usually enough to go from the airport to your accommodations. If you are traveling light or dont mind the load, many times public transportation such as subways and rail serve airports, check into this before pondering a taxi, I learned this watching videos aimed at airport arrivals and how to get into the city.
A good habit a friend taught me while I'm traveling and using ATMs: use your bank app and lock your bank card after every use. That way if someone has skimmed your card no transactions will go through bc your card will be locked. Then when you use it again, unlock, get your $ and immediately lock the card again. It gives you so much peace of mind.
I have yet to go to Europe but I remember watching your video about phones abroad from 6 or 7 ish years ago. Do you think your advice from that video still applies or have things with phones abroad changed since then?
One thing that I found that to change language on the ATMs you pick the flag that is associated with that language. And for English you have to pick the UK flag. Also I found that many Post Offices have ATMs.
Very helpful video Mark, you’re channel is appreciated by many. I myself have gotten at least 10 people to subscribe. Gotta get you to that 1 million!!
Another heads-up: you can use a Euro in all of the countries where it is the official currency, but even though Norway, Denmark, Sweden and the Czech Republic all call their currencies Crown they are all different curriencies. In other words: you can't use a Danish Crown in Norway, for example.
@@CH-vm6cq I've seen some people who thought so, maybe because they are all small countries (not big enough to have their own currency). I'm sure it can be confusing for an outsider with who the members of the EU are and what nations within that group uses the Euro. Since the Euros can be traded with in all Euro countries it's a somewhat logical step to think the same goes for the Crown(s).
You may want to have a 'wise card' and Zelle to put money in your Wise card from your bank. This way, you get the best rate and don't get banged by your own bank.
In most countries, you can pay with a credit card. It’s best to use a credit card which does not charge foreign transaction fees. MasterCard and Visa are your best options since they are the most widely accepted credit cards worldwide.
One other thing. The paper 20 pound note is being retired the end of September 2022. I was holding mine fire my next trip but it will not be until after September. I just took it to my bank (Chase) and deposited it into my account.
you could have exchanged it at any post office in the UK for free for quite some time after, so that would have worked as well, but I understand if you didn't want to risk it.
Last fall when we were in Italy none of the bank ATM would give me money from my VISA debit card with a chip in Rome, Florence, nor Venice. Concierge in Venice hotel said he had previously lived in London and had same problem in Italy.
@woltersworld thoughts asking my local back to get me currency and fly to the destination? Does getting the forieng currency in the USD before travel a more prudent idea?
I traveled to Scotland and Norther Ireland, where I had to withdraw cash and I took your advice on one of your videos very seriously - so once ATM gave me out Northern Ireland pounds I went inside the bank and changed all the money to British pounds. I came back home and I asked exchange booth what would be the fee for exchanging that money, they said something like 20% less from GBP exchange rate.
Northern Ireland uses British Pound Sterling. It is the exact same currency. Their bank notes are just a different design and are issued usually by Ulsterbank. If you were charged a conversion fee, you got ripped off
I didn't even know there were such thing as prepaid credit cards. I doubt I'll ever travel abroad, BUT if I do, I'll keep that in mind for looking into a prepaid credit card with a PIN
this might be a dumb question but do they have american banks like chase around the world. assuming the same banks you use at home will give you the best rates
Great timing for the video Mark, thanks! We go to Ireland in a month and I'll go to my bank today and look at getting some Euros. Funny money story on my Soviet college trip from 1989 back in the old days when we used travelers checks and exchanged for local money and only the rich had credit cards. You exchange a little money at the bank but in the communist countries you got far better deals for trading it on the street on the black market. At the bank you got a ruble for $1.60, but on the street you could get six or seven rubles for a dollar. But of course a lot of black marketers would take advantage of Americans who can't read Cyrillic and give people some other currency. So you would always say pakazhetay mnye vasha mahnyeti, or show me your money. Fortunately I knew Cyrillic brushing up on Fraser Russian beforehand, and I was a stamp collector in my youth so I could instantly recognize most country names from the stamps. One person in our group bragged that he got 10 Euros for a dollar. I asked him to show us the money and instantly recognized Yugoslavia and I had let him know that money was worthless here. The rest of the people in our class laughed hysterically and for the rest of the trip his nickname was Jugo.
Excellent information my friend. I always wait until I arrive in Germany to get my money. I usually have euros left over from my previous trip as well as i you oh had stated. Great job Mark. :)
Bad idea to get Euros from your bank before you go. They will not give you the best rate and charge you a transaction fee to boot. Go to a European bank ATM once you arrive and get Euros there.
I would agree to not take out a huge amount from home... but having a 100 or 2 to pay for an emergency cab, grabbing something to eat, etc is not such a bad idea. Not all airports have good ATMs (some only have Euronet-style ones that are totally gonna rip you off, or even no ATMs in some stations), or you might be in a rush to get to your hotel, and no matter how unfortunate it is, many taxi drivers still have a 'broken' card machine and insist on taking cash in many places. And while you should be able to pay electronically in most places, some don't accept foreign cards (e.g. Belgium just mandated all customer-facing businesses should accept some form of electronic payment, but many who didn't before, chose for a domestic payment app, our equivalent of Venmo, you'd be shit out of luck with whatever card you come.) I witnessed it at a bar in Brussels, an American tourist wanted to pay for his beer with a credit card and couldn't believe he had to get cash from an ATM.
In the Netherlands I had issues using my chase credit card at petrol pumps. Had to use rmy friends European debit card. In Italy at smaller restaurants the card machines sometimes didn't want to read USA credit cards
Fun fact: Discover is Diners Club International in Europe. Sometimes a hotel looks strangely at your Discover card but when they charge it they'll see Diners Club. But it's very rarely accepted. Mostly big hotel chains.
Great advice. One thing I see on the UK Reddit is then always talking about how “cashless” it is compared to the US. something I have added to my lIst for when I go to the UK.
I went to several European countries in high school right before they went to the Euro. I saved a few of the bills from each place, thinking "hey if I come back I can use these!" well....not so much with the Euro. But now they make a cool historical reminder/memory from when I was there so it all worked out!
You might be able to exchange the old bills to the current currency. The certain local bank still keep doing this. I did it the several years ago with Lithuanian litas which I saved from my trip to Lithuania. My trip happened just 8 months before Lithuania went from Litas to €.
it depends from country to country, not all still exchange the older currencies. There's a handy table on the ECB's website, but basically, if you have any of the southern currencies like Spanish pesetas, Italian lira, Portuguese escudos, Greek drachme or French francs, you're out of luck. Even the countries that do allow to exchange the old currency, have limitations, some like Belgium only exchange the bills, no longer the coins, and for as far as I can tell, they only exchange them at their respective national banks, not in each private bank or post office. If you only have a little amount, it might well not be worth it.
On exchange houses, recently traveled in Switzerland coming from France, and the best exchange rates for cash that I got were in coop of all places, I guess it pays to look around.
Travel shows don't show these types of stuff on TV. In reality this is what is important for a majority of people because a majority of people are not rich and every penny matters. People like me (who are from a middle class / lower middle class family who dream about traveling the world on a budget) need this type of information. Information about where to go is easily available but proper information about how to save money is rare. 2:51✍️
Hello fellow travelers, greetings from Argentina, 👋 we love watching videos and discovering new places and people. A hug from a distance... ENJOY LIFE!!! ❤🙌
I would not have taken so much from home, but rather taken 1-200, and withdrawn at the destination, to be honest. But the amount seems to be quite correct, it is a holiday, after all, so chances are, you are more often going to eat out, do fun activities, etc.
Tried for a credit card with no overseas fees but was knocked back because I, personally, don’t earn enough. Quite disappointing. Just needed a vid like this. 👍
I for sure wish I knew about the not converting at the ATM before I was in London. I was charged SO much. I'm going to Venice in May and will be getting Euros from my bank a few months before I leave. I love your videos ❤
Oh no Mark, I am from Germany and I never get 100 € bills from the ATM. Nobody wants them here either. Usually, I get 4x 50 € and the rest in 20 € or 10 € bills. But there might be differences in different cities. I am from Munich and here, you can also withdraw "crooked" amounts, e.g. 270 €, while in Berlin I have had the experience that they only pay out full 50s there, i.e. 250, 300, 350 € etc. You are right with the transaction fees on credit card expenses. When I went to the U.S. with my Mastercard, they charged me 2% fee on each transaction in U.S. $. But forget about American Express in Europe (especially in Germany) - and I have never heard about Discover 😳 It was quite useful to mention the tap function. You can use it even at my local bakery 😊
Yes great video -helpful and informative -i like the fact that i can read it too not many videos seem to have subtitles! So hello to all u travellers! Im going to cyprus 4 a couple of weeks and Im hoping someone can tell me do i even need to take euros at all?? I keep seeing conflicting views around online. I'm guessing I wont need more than 100 in UK money?? I dont want to spend much and Im staying with a friend so Im confused about whether how much euros will b needed because so many places are cashless and use tap etc. Any advice much appreciated! Thanks all
Napiszę po polsku, tak jest łatwiej. W Czechach nie potrzebujesz czeskich koron - wystarczy karta płatnicza. We Francji jesteśmy 2 tygodnie - nie wydaliśmy ani jednego EUR w gotówce. W Niemczech za paliwo, hotele, zakupy też płacimy kartą. Najlepiej założyć konto walutowe, kartę do niego a walutę kupować w kantorach internetowych. Gotówka do niczego nie jest potrzebna, nawet do parkomatu.
There has been a huge move in Europe towards contactless payments, and MANY MANY businesses now do not accept cash. Sweden is possibly the extreme case on this point. In many places you even cannot use cash to go to the toilet. You use your contactless bank card.
That might be true for some north european countries but in the rest of the europe cash is still the king. In many countries it is illegal not to accept cash.
@@mauriciot I was in Germany from 13th to 22nd June. I paid for almost everything (even snacks) by credit card. The German attitude to credit cards has definitely changed. It may be even the effects of Covid-19. Germans (like other Europeans) do not want to get infected from notes or coins. (In Switzerland in April I paid for almost everything by card. In Britain where I live a substantial number of businesses say card only NO CASH.)
300 EUR and they want to offer an exchange rate of 368 USD. That is not an offer it's an outright scam. Actually thanks to earlier videos about this exchange rate offer I always press no and safe a ton. I never experienced an ATM before that gave out hundred EUR bill. But then again the longest I stayed in Germany was 1 night and only because of flight delay.
In Mexico, everyone wants change and no one will give it. Even a supermarket won't break a larger bill, not even 200 pesos, about 10 bucks. I ended up going to a bank.
In Prague be aware of gangs offering to swap large notes to smaller notes, they give you Bulgarian and Belarussian notes, there's a Czech youtuber called Honest Guide explains about the scam. Great video
I brought 3 credit cards and Canadian dollars in case I needed to exchange money for my Europe trip. I mostly paid with my cards but some places only took cash. Now, I have Euro, Czech crowns and Hungarian Forint in my wallet.
Companies that have employees traveling will go to a money exchange business. We used to go to a place in Birmingham MI to get funds ahead. Had to order.
Check you bank and see who they have agreements with. For example Bank of America often has an agreement with one large bank in bigger countries that will not charge you the bank transaction fee using their ATM. Also, If you are a good customer, you can order foreign cash online at a decent exchange rate and I usually get it at home within two days.
One more tip - figure out which of your coins have the most similar dimensions to 1€ and 50c and take some with you. Reason - you can pay with your card at the supermarket, no problem, but you may need a coin to unlock the shopping cart. And, at some airports, the same system works for baggage carts…
I used my Chase United card in Brussels and I saved a lot of conversion money on a coffee and my breakfast meal. I was taking Brussels to Namur last year and it came in handy when I didn’t want to pull out Euros in a hurry.
Sometimes here in the UK in the foreign money shops you can pay a small fee to lock in the exchange rate for when you want to sell your foreign currency back to the shop when you come back home to the UK
i’ve been watching a ton of these videos, im going to paris this spring, i know it’s not for a while but better to be prepared now and have it in the back of my head then to not be prepared at all
As a Swede working in a touristy place. The most common thing I'd want Americans to know is know your four digit pin and don't bring cash. As in DON'T BRING CASH! You don't need it and will probably not be able to spend them before you leave. The number of people I've met that have trouble paying for lunch because they only have cash is almost comical. We generally use cash so little that I don't think I've used an ATM in Sweden for at least 10 years. The only time I can think of you'd need cash is to buy drugs. I'd honesty be surprised if couldn't buy drugs with a credit/debit card as well if you wanted to...
It makes such a difference these days: get off the plane with a bit of cash, plastic, and enjoy your trip. TfL were happy to send me an Oyster Card before I left Canada. Their Aussie counterparts sent me an Opal Card. And so on.
if you have a contactless bank card (credit or debit), you don't even need an Oyster, these days. Unless your bank fees for payments in foreign currencies is extortionate (I have one that charges 50 ct for each single transaction, that quickly adds up when paying lots of trips), I'd just use my bank card, these days.
You know, my bank and my credit card company (like many here) use the latest chip technology (like they do in Europe) so I do not have to deal with telling my bank or credit card company I am travelling, and they can also use tap and go technology. Also, because I am with a huge bank, I can order foreign currency on line, they debit my account and in 3 or 4 days I can pick up the notes at my local branch, or have it delivered by FedEx (or pick up at my local FedEx office). On a personal note, the worst coins to deal with are British coins, only because it is often damned hard to see the number on them. And yes I currently have euros, pounds, Mexican pesos, and Canadian dollars - paper and coins. My last trip in my travel wallet I had Swiss francs, euros, and US dollars.
> my bank and my credit card company (like many here) use the latest chip technology (like they do in Europe) so I do not have to deal with telling my bank or credit card company I am travelling No no no. This is unrelated. They might have the technology, but you should still notify them of travels, or else they may block your card for suspicious activity and give you trouble while you’re there. Better safe than sorry.
@@jendorei Did that a few years back when I got my chipped card and both my credit card company and bank (for debit card) did not care. They used to have on their websites (after logging in) a tab where you could notify them of your travel plans, but even that is gone.
