Credit card advance or atm card

[Bimmer31]

Which will be the better thing to do. Use an atm card in Colombia or a credit card for cash advances. I'm trying not to carry both cards. Will the fees for the cash advances be tough?

[Bill123]

You've asked an interesting question. The best way to go, by far, is to use a debit ATM card (either with or without the visa or master card logo).

To use a credit card to get cash is nuts....since they will charge a huge cash advance fee for getting cash.

Having said that, you must realize the costs involved in using a debit card to get cash. Generally there is a 1% fee to Visa or whatever logo company you are going thru. Since April, this should be broken out on your checking account statement. Apparently there is no charge that is charged by the foreign ATM. After that, the fees are the ones charged by your own bank, and these fees vary greatly. My credit union charges nothing for getting cash out, and a $1 ATM charge after the first 5 at a foreign ATM. But most banks charge 2 or 3% for this PLUS a $3 ATM fee. A real ripoff in my opinion.

Finally, other uses for a visa or mastercard debit card are for credit (signed) purchases. The same is true for credit cards. You should check with your bank to see the fees on these, but again, they are high, especially compared to credit unions.

[Junfan]

There you go...straight from the mouth of our official GringoTalk miser.

[Scott]

May credit union says their is no additional charge when I use their cc for purchases overseas. I will test that on my next trip.

When I use my credit union debit card at ATM's they only charge me $1 US per transaction. So I get $400,000 CP (approx $170 US) and it only cost me a $1.

Use credit unions.

[Bimmer31]

Not familiar with credit unions. What are they all about and who are the better ones to use?

Just talked with my bank and they charge $2 for using another banks atm plus %3 for foriegn exchange. Doesn't seem to bad is only use it maybe once a day.

[Colombia Vacations]

If you travel a lot, or can't get to your own banks ATM and want to avoid fees, (the tight wads love this one) You can open an account at
E* Trade, https://us.etrade.com/e/t/home, there are no ATM fees.

It's strickly a Internet/mail system. They are usually a few days behind in posting but you can use the ATM.

The best I've found is CitiBank, they are world wide and only charge $1.50 per transaction if you use a non CitiBank. The ATM fee is well worth the service, it saves from using the "casa de cambios" Considering nothing is usually free, I find CitiBank to be worth the money, their on line banking has been flawless.

[TheBatmanDude]

I also vote for citibank. used my citibank atm card in Bogota and San Jose, Costa rica, worked great, and i did not see any big fees on my statement at all for these uses. Bat.