Credit Card at Pemex

I also dumped BOA for the same reasons. If you need a totally fee free way to get money from an ATM in Mexico or other countries open a Charles Schwab High Yield Investor Checking Account. It is totally free to open and is totally free from all fees and will rebate back any ATM charge to you.

I should have gone to the bank too, but I was cut short since they wanted cash to pay for portion of a tour to the Reef. The machine was there and time was running out. ATM could be very expensive, my fault.

BTW, at the hotel they told me to go to Scotia Bank in a hotel on the beach to get the best rate.....

We use our credit union debit cards to get cash at cajero automaticos in Mexico. When we get our statement it says "fee waived due to RBP". I asked our credit union what this means and they explained in terms only a banker can understand. Anyway, for whatever reasons we do not pay to use ATMs in Mexico most of the time.

The fees are set by whoever owns the machine and they can charge whatever they want. Which is why we only use machines at banks. Actually quite a few reasons for using machines at banks - better rate - usually safe - if a problem we can go in the bank - I think there are more reasons.

Many places we go do not have the ability to accept credit cards. Tianguis would be an example of mostly cash businesses. Small town stores may not take credit cards. Carrying a lot of cash is not our favorite thing to do but sometimes there are no options. We do not carry much cash on our person but we do have hiding places in our vehicles.

briansue wrote:
We have several credit cards. For whatever reasons they all charge an international monetary exchange rate fee for using the card in a foreign country. We use our debit cards to get cash at bank ATM machines. We can then pay cash for fuel and do not have to worry about whether they take credit cards - or having to pay and extra fee each time we use it. We pay our vehicle deposit with our credit card when crossing the border and that is about all we use credit cards for unless some special purchase. Maybe not all credit cards charge this fee but ours do. Our debit cards do not. We get cash almost always only at banks in case something doesn't work as it should. We do not like having our important numbers out and about all over the world.

Neither one of my Chase cards charge foreign transaction fees. This includes my Chase Sapphire and Chase United Explorer. Took them to Colombia last year and no trouble.

Friday's exchange rate was around 13.5 on the net and more like 13.3 at ATM's Has not been 12.5 for months.

Moisheh

WOW, just got the bills. I got 40 US dollar out of an ATM machine that gives only US dollars in Cancun.

For 40 dollars, I was charged 58 canadian dollars, that is almost 50% charges! This is legal roberry, thanks Mexico.

Same as BrianSue, we get the maximum allowable amount from ATMs using a Credit Union cash card (three separate cards as back-up) and then pay for everything with cash. Credit card international fees add up pretty quickly if you use them for all the little purchases as well, so we carry them for emergency use and for any on-line purchases.

The other problem with credit cards - which are CitiBank - is they seem to take great delight in cancelling or suspending cards under the silliest pretexts despite being told over and over that we travel and we buy stuff on the internet and we have regular payments as well and they really need to recognise that and get over their paranoia

Love it!
Keep preaching to the choir!

I got burned with the exchange fees and charges using my Discover card outside the US. When I made a comment on RV.NET, several people suggested Capital One and I had my Cap-1 card within a few days. No fees or charges and the exchange rate is very close to what is posted on the internet. I also us a debit card from my local bank to raid the ATMs in Mexico. Each time I agree to pay X number of pesos for the transaction, but my bank refunds the charge. It is a small local bank and also gives an exchange rate very close to what's posted.

Paul

Time to change banks/credit card account carriers.
We have yet to visit a country where the best exchange rate was NOT at an ATM.
We also find that it always pays to use the local currency. As of Friday, the US dollar was 12.5 pesos. Your bus ride would have been a lot cheaper if you had used pesos.
We all live and learn.

Last November the big change was that Bank of America kept their free use of Santander ATM's, but initiated a 3% foreign transaction fee on every withdrawal. That adds up fast. That's when we gave up a 50+ year relationship with BofA and went to CapOne for everything. We had already switched from the 2.5% fee minimum for foreign use of credit cards with BofA and gone to CapOne's free international cards. It was a total pain in the butt to do, but worth it in the end.