Money IQEasy Access to Your Money When Traveling
Whether you spend the day shopping, take a road trip, or travel around the world, you expect to have access to your money when you need it.
In this week’s edition of Money IQ, I will provide you with a few tips that will ensure that you can easily access your funds at any time.
If you are planning to withdraw cash at ATMs while on travel, you will need to know your PIN.
It’s a good idea to verify the PIN a couple of weeks before you depart, so your bank can have a new PIN or a PIN reminder sent to you if you don’t know it.
When using ATMs outside your bank’s network you will likely incur transaction fees that are charged by the ATM owner.
You could reduce these fees by getting cash back at participating retailers. For example, when you purchase something at most grocery stores or “big box” stores, the card processing terminal will give you an opportunity to request cash back.
Most financial institutions have adopted fraud monitoring systems that mitigate fraud on debit and credit card transactions.
When these systems determine that a transaction may be fraud, the transaction is stopped and/or the card is temporarily shut down.
These systems often will not allow the card to be used again until you confirm that all transactions on the card are valid.
By taking the following steps, you will help insure that your travel spending goes smoothly.
Help prevent your card from getting frozen by letting the card issuing bank know of your travel before you depart.
They will notate your account regarding the travel and may even make sure that the fraud monitoring system does not block your card during that time.
Also make sure that you know how to contact the card issuer if your card does get frozen.
For transactions on a debit or credit card in a foreign currency, you will be charged currency exchange fees.
When you are traveling internationally, you may want to exchange currency at your local bank before you leave in order to avoid those fees.
For those of you who are planning to spend large amounts daily, you should check into the daily purchase/cash limit that is allowed on your debit or credit card.
Many institutions limit this to just a few hundred dollars per day but can temporarily increase the daily limit if you have a need for it.
Contact a representative of your bank or stop in to see them the next time you are planning a trip or making a large purchase to see what they can do for you.
Editor’s note: Missy Galle is an Operations Officer at Los Alamos National Bank. She has been with LANB since July 2005 and supervises the Electronic Banking Center.
- Look for Money IQ every Wednesday in the Los Alamos Daily Post.
