Cheques?Cash?Credit Card?

[andreah]

We take a few hundred dollars cash to keep us going. Then use our debit card from the Nationwide, to get cash out from cash points or pay for goods and meals, they never charge us fees for using the card abroad.

[wrpac00]

We take about $500 in Tc's (for 3 weeks) and use our CC for the rest.

As people above have said this has been covered in depth before but what I think confuses some people is that most CC DO NOT charge you for using your card in the US they give you a slightly lower $ rate. On the other side of the coin they do give you cashback whereas others e.g Nationwide do not give cashback on foreign purchases. You need to look into your T&C's of your card to find out exactly what it will/will not costs you.

[waterside]

i alwats take cash

then use my bank of america debit card whilst there

no problems ever

except that bank of america keep sending stuff to GUYANNA as my postal cosde is not dissimilar-- they do not seem to have sugfficient space to put UK, ENGLAND OR WHATEVER!!

[Jan.B.]

<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:Originally posted by Snapper
Hi Angela,

If your debit card says either Maestro or Cirrus on it, it should be OK for use in most ATMs in Orlando.

If you are using an ATM to get cash it will more than likely ask you which type of account to withdraw from. Just select the option closest to Credit Card. In the US a cheque account is referred to as a checking account, so avoid this option if you see it.

Have a great trip.
[/quote]

both my cards (Lloyds TSB and Barclays) say Delta on them.
can i still use them in the US ok?

[stabard]

I just use my Bank of America debit card and take a bit of cash for incidentals. Before I had my US accoutn I just used to use my NAt west debit card to get cash out of the ATM

[Magical Dreams]

We tend to use a mixture of Cash, TC & Debit Cards (N/Wide)

TC's are easy and do not incurr charges like they do in spain and other european countries.
Just make sure they are in $US and not Sterling!
[msnsmile2][msnsmile2]

[Tonish]

I stopped using travellers cheques years ago. There are ATM's everywhere and you don't really need to carry a lot of cash. The problem with travellers cheques is losing them. Whatever AMEX etc tell you, it's no end of hassle getting them replaced. Also, if you use them, you need to take the money out of your account long before you actually spend it, which I think is a costly way of working.

Tonish

[AngelaB]

Thanks everyone for all your views etc, it has been helpful. Still not really sure what to do myself though. Think i will look into the Nationwide CC as well.

[msnsmile]

[CarolAnn]

We have been using mainly credit card for the past 14 years, would recommend it! The only thing we need cash for is toll roads(depends how much travelling around you do), ice-creams...err that really is about it!! Everything else has been put on a credit card!! We have found this very successful of the years, and in the US they take CC's much more readily than the UK for absolutely anything! Before, having a US bank account we also used our Nationwide Debit card to get cash out, just to see how the costing was, absolutely fine, no surprises, no cost either (that was about 4 years ago).

[tezz7628]

mines cash, travellers cheques and my liverpool victoria credit card

which sadly i have seen the rate rise from free to 1% to 2.75% from 1st june