Quote:
Originally Posted by John933
I've found that countries at are next door to Euro currency countries will take euro's. In some places you'll see thing's marked in local currency and euros. So before you go getting load of money, just get a small amount and then look round.
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That approach makes sense if you are only in the non-Euro country for a short time, and don't plan on making a lot of cash purchases. For example, when I rode through the Balkans this past summer, I didn't bother to go to an ATM to get local currency in countries that I only spent a couple of days in. I paid my hotel bills with a credit card, and probably didn't spend more than about 50 Euros on cash purchases.
But, if your cash purchases will exceed about 100 Euros, it probably will be less expensive for you to go to an ATM and withdraw local currency using your ATM card (I stress here "ATM card", not credit card), simply because the ATMs will offer a far better currency conversion rate than the local merchants will offer.
The threshold, the break-point, occurs when the fee for using the ATM (typically about 3 Euros) exceeds the exchange rate losses incurred when paying for small cash purchases with foreign currency.
Michael
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