Cash or Card? Countries where you still need cash.

[Mattg]

I was recently in Ecuador and many shops etc. only accepted cash. The good news though is that they use USD as their official currency and everything was very affordable, so getting cash wasn't a big problem.

I was also in Argentina recently. Many businesses do accept credit cards, but offer discounts in the order of 10-15% if you pay in cash. You can also save quite a lot of money by bringing USD with you and changing them to Argentinian pesos on the street. The exchange rate you get is around 15% better than the official exchange rate. So by changing cash on the street and paying cash, you're effectively saving up to 30%.

 

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

I’d be interested to know if UniCaja Bianco ATMs want to charge a fee for your ING card?

I did the test.
I used the ING card at a UniCaja ATM. The ATM didn’t charge a fee, ING charged $5 and then rebated it (I jumped the hoops last month), and the transaction converted within 0.3% of XE rate.
Test successful…

 

[SYD]

I did the test.
I used the ING card at a UniCaja ATM. The ATM didn’t charge a fee, ING charged $5 and then rebated it (I jumped the hoops last month), and the transaction converted within 0.3% of XE rate.
Test successful…

Excellent. Many thanks for the feedback!

 

[CMA222]

The way things are going with card transaction fees in the USA there could be a resurgence of the need for cash ?

https://loyaltylobby.com/2024/05/03/reader-question-when-no-sense-to-use-credit-card-due-to-fees/

 

[SYD]

The way things are going with card transaction fees in the USA there could be a resurgence of the need for cash ?

https://loyaltylobby.com/2024/05/03/reader-question-when-no-sense-to-use-credit-card-due-to-fees/

I think I posted up thread a Chicago Restaurant/Bar I went to was “Cashless” but charged 2 or 3% CC surcharge!

At least that’s illegal in Oz.

 

[There'sOnlyOneJimmy]

Further to foreign ATMs, Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC) and the like…

Today I withdrew cash from an IberCaja ATM in rural Spain (Galicia).
The ATM very generously offered to convert the EU amount into AUD for me.
The rate offered was 1 AUD = 0.562148 EU, while the XE rate at the time showed 1 AUD = 0.6133 EU
In this instance I was withdrawing 600 EU, so the ATM was offering to charge me 1067.33 AUD (which I declined…), while my ING account is now showing a charge of 981.51 AUD (i.e. 1 : 0.6113)
If my rusty arithmetic is correct, the ATM offer would have been about an 8.7% higher cost than the ING charge

 

[Flashback]

Georgia and Armenia, definitely want to have cash here. Lots of places say they take card, but when you go to pay........... nope. Fortunately, most of the bank's ATMs are fee free. Azerbaijan is much the same, although slightly better acceptance of card.

 

[p--and--t]

Just returned from Mexico and Cuba.

Mexico. Could not find anyone (including 4 banks, 2 x Fx, and two hotels) who will accept AUD. To get money we used ATMs to get pesos. USD accepted everywhere but not at good rates. Whether card or cash was acceptable varied from venue to venue, The places that accepted card often wanted to charge in USD and were more expensive than places that took local currency cash (pesos). ANZ charged AUD5 ATM fee for each withdrawal.

Cuba - take cash in USD or EUD. DO NOT change at official currency exchange places (rate fixed at USD1:CUP120). “Black market” rates (at private accom houses etc) varied from USD1: CUP310-400+. Paying in CUP always better prices than USD/EUD