Cash or Card? Countries where you still need cash.

[Jacques Vert]

Anyone know of fee-free ATMs in Turkey?

At the airport arrivals Ziraat. In Turkiye/Turkey, Ptt, Halkbank and Ziraat are the ones to look out for.

Thanks for that. Found an Halkbank about 10mins from our accommodation. My wdl was at Visa exchange rate which in turn is just under 1% off the interbank rate. Used the NAB replacement for the Citibank Plus.

The machine did offer to convert my withdrawal to AUD using dcc for a mere 8%. Just selected "accept without conversion".

 

[SYD]

Prague - so far cashless.

Not sure I’ve even seen a cash only place at the Christmas Markets - quite the opposite. Several “No Cash” signs around.

 

[grandir]

Argentina.

Argentina has two exchange rates: the official bank one, and the blue one. Blue one is significantly better than the official one approx 10-15% better. But the blue one is only for when you exchange physical bills either in "official" cash exchange locations locally called "cambios" or from Western Union which uses the blue rate.

If you pay by card - which you can in pretty much all places in Argentina - you will be paying the Visa rate which is the official rate. So while you dont need cash in Argentina perse, you are far better off using cash instead of card.

Additionally, many businesses will openly offer you a much better price if you pay in cash vs card. For example, when I went clothes shopping in a mall, on the price tag there was the cash price vs the official price i.e. the cash price was around 15% cheaper than the card price.

 

[SYD]

Argentina.

Argentina has two exchange rates: the official bank one, and the blue one. Blue one is significantly better than the official one approx 10-15% better. But the blue one is only for when you exchange physical bills either in "official" cash exchange locations locally called "cambios" or from Western Union which uses the blue rate.

If you pay by card - which you can in pretty much all places in Argentina - you will be paying the Visa rate which is the official rate. So while you dont need cash in Argentina perse, you are far better off using cash instead of card.

Additionally, many businesses will openly offer you a much better price if you pay in cash vs card. For example, when I went clothes shopping in a mall, on the price tag there was the cash price vs the official price i.e. the cash price was around 15% cheaper than the card price.

I’ve not been tracking the rates since I was there last Feb but don’t you still get a rebate when using card (which makes card better than official)? Cash (Blue) was still the best but required crisp new USD bills. Fortunately I was able to get some in Uruguay before arriving in BA!

The other PITA is very high ATM fees and low max withdrawal limits. So don’t rely on using ATMs if there for a while!

 

[grandir]

I’ve not been tracking the rates since I was there last Feb but don’t you still get a rebate when using card (which makes card better than official)? Cash (Blue) was still the best but required crisp new USD bills. Fortunately I was able to get some in Uruguay before arriving in BA!

The other PITA is very high ATM fees and low max withdrawal limits. So don’t rely on using ATMs if there for a while!

It's very complicated. From what I've read, MC supposedly gives you a rebate while Visa supposedly gives you the blue rate on the spot but from my recent experience, Visa gave me the official rate as did my friends who had MCs.

So I suspect the electronic blue rate when paying for card only affects US Credit Cards rather than more obscure foreign ones which Australian cards would be in a place like Argentina.

And yea physical USD is the safest bet to get the blue rate there but you can always grab a bunch of USD before you enter to exchange. Otherwise you can use Western Union to send AUD to yourself while in Argentina and take cash out from WU since WU does give you blue rate when transferring to ARP even from AUD.