Of Mice and Money

Happy Tuesday everyone!  I was inspired for this week's post by some comments that my friend Corey tried unsuccessfully to make on an earlier post.  He e-mailed me his thoughts on the matters of carrying cash, and exchanging currency, and I'd like to share them with you:

"If you are in a part of the world that might be considered ‘dodgy’ and need to exchange currency, make sure that you have crisp, brand new US Dollars.  They have to be the ones with the seemingly large head of Andrew Jackson (if $20’s), the new 2004 format, and not creased in any way – you’ll get a better exchange rate and the bills are much less likely to be refused.  I’ve had crumpled bills rejected in China and Central/South America, and I got a better rate in Russia.  Actually, speaking of Russia, I got a better rate from the security guard at the hotel than the Exchange Booth – of course, caution is required when changing money on the street, both in ensuring that you get real currency and only exposing what you want to exchange.  There tends to be a group of 3 or 4 guys looking to change currency, and if you open your money belt with 100’s of US Dollars and only want to exchange $40, someone’s gonna be keeping an eye on you.

It’s something that people don’t think of before they travel – the bank tellers in Canada don’t really understand when you’re asking for crisp US bills and assume you’re going to use it for sniffing cocaine."  --Corey

I really thought that was an interesting point about the crispness of the bills.  If you plan on exchanging cash when you arrive at your destination it's well worth getting a few strange looks from the bank tellers to ask for fresh money.  I've found that having your cash exchange at your destination is sometimes the only option.  We tried to get some Yen in Canada before heading to Japan and were met with VERY limited success.  I really thought that Yen would be easy to come by, but I was mistaken.  You can imagine my luck trying to find Icelandic Krona before leaving.

In Iceland I was able to exchange some Canadian money right at the airport to get me started.  If you're dealing with an airport currency exchange you're not likely to run into any issues with Canadian money, but elsewhere Corey's point about carrying US dollars can't be overstated.  In a lot of places you can just pay in USD and not have to worry about exchanging your money at all.  It's a widely accepted, and sometimes widely sought after currency, and it's probably worth taking the hit on exchanging your money twice just for the security of having such a universal form of cash.

Generally speaking I would try to avoid situations like what Corey described where you're exchanging money at the hotel lobby.  The rate at the currency exchange may be highway robbery, but it's much preferable to being robbed.  That said, if you are in a comfortable situation and feel like you can change money securely it may end up being a major cost-savings for you.  You have to know Corey to realize that situations like that just tend to work out for him.  Which leads us to travel tip #510: "Carry a horseshoe securely in your rectum."

My approach has been to bring a bit of cash to exchange at the airport and then rely on ATMs to get cash as I need it.  This avoids the always unpleasant act of carrying huge amounts of cash around.  This approach is not without it's risks however.  For any new readers I'll quickly go over my well documented ATM debacle in Japan.  At the time I had a 6-digit PIN number, which is perfectly acceptable in Canada.  Having read the Japanese ATMs worked with Canadian cards I just took as much Yen as I could muster and decided to rely on the ATM system.  My first attempt to do so was, fortunately, very early in the trip and was done more as a test than anything.  The Japanese ATM system (and apparently this goes for most ATM systems the world over) will only accept a 4-digit PIN and was unprepared for the 6-digits that I entered.  The theory is that, expecting a mere 4 digits the machine just sent the first 4 digits of my PIN to my bank for verification.  Upon receiving an incorrect PIN from a foreign country my bank did me the favour of cancelling my card.  So let that be a lesson to everyone!  You can't always count on the ATMs, and if you'd like to make use of them ensure that you have a 4-digit PIN.

Unfortunately my mishap in Japan happened despite the fact that I'd called my bank to let them know I'd be out of the country.  Still, I don't in anyway look down upon this practice and in fact I strongly encourage it.  My bank has actually taken to warning people about the 4-digit PIN situation when they call about leaving the country, so obviously I wasn't the only person to stumble over that little technicality.  There are also certain security protocols, put in place for our protection, that they will set aside given the appropriate warning.  Another fun anecdote comes from a friend of mine who's parents were travelling through Europe without having warned their bank in advance.  Apparently they were in an area where many countries were intersecting and managed to use their credit card in three different countries over the course of one day.  You can imagine what kind of alarm bells that raises with the good people at Visa!  So, for good reason, they cancelled the card.  Had they been warned in advance this situation would not have come up.  This is particularly important because, as I found out in Japan, once a card has been cancelled there's nothing to be done about it until you return home.  A few simple precautions can prevent you from being stranded with a non-functioning card.

Well, all this talk of money reminds me that I should probably go to work and earn some of it.  Any other suggestions for safely accessing your money while abroad are always welcome in the comments section.  See you all next Tuesday!