You've reached the blog where I will post my experiences from my solo backpacking trip through Europe in a total of 15 days. I hope you get some good information from this site. Don't hesitate to get in touch and post about your own experiences!


Monday, September 8, 2008

Global ATM Alliance

If you think paying the $2.50 "convenience fee" at ATM's not owned by your bank sucks, imagine what it's like overseas. They hit you with service fees, currency charges, and other random "convenience" charges every time you swipe that card... that is, unless you have Bank of America. BOA has agreements with most of the major banks in Europe, where all fees are waived. When I lived in the UK for those couple months back in 2006, the Barclays ATM became my best friend. If you don't have BOA, it might be worth it to open for your trip overseas.

3 comments:

Ryan Birk said...

Hmmm, I might have to open up a BoA account and dump my Europe funds into it before heading over.

Lauren said...

I have a credit card from Capital One, and while it does charge for withdrawing money, it doesn't charge the 3% fee for international transactions, which many cards do. So check the fine print on your card's details.
Also, Citibank is in many European countries as well.

Ryan Birk said...

Thanks for the tip Lauren! I am going to start up an account somewhere and dump the funds through transfers to it until I leave.