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Yes, you can. I've been in Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar (not to mention Thailand) and I always has much better exchange rate for USD cash, than my credit an

Yes, you can. I've been in Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar (not to mention Thailand) and I always has much better exchange rate for USD cash, than my credit and/or debit card. Yes, I'm not from USA, and we don't have any cards with real cash-back. Typically exchange rate for all banks in my country is like xe.com + 3-5%. It is terrible. Only one time I seen really monstrous exchange rate for cash: in Istanbul airport. It was complete rip-off. Exchange booths in Istnabul itself were better than my bank exchange rate. And typical spread in exchange booth in Myanmar is 0.1%. Yes, 0.1%. Like, 1000/1001 per dollar if you have $100 bills (worse for $50 and lower).

oasisbob 4y ago
> Yes, I'm not from USA, and we don't have any cards with real cash-back. Typically exchange rate for all banks in my country is like xe.com + 3-5%. It is terrible. Ahh, now I understand where the disagreement is coming from. For US cards, it's not cash-back rewards which make them a good value for foreign exchange. It's that the networks (eg, VISA, or Mastercard) offer currency conversion rates which are much closer to par than local retail services. (or, your bank, apparently.) This article has a few good example charts for the networks: https://www.thinmargin.com/blogs/visa-vs-mastercard-who-gives-better-exchange-rates https://www.thinmargin.com/blogs/visa-vs-mastercard-who-give... Typically there is a 1% fee for the service. However, many premium cards will waive this fee as a privilege. If you have access to a card like this, it's a no-brainer.
- blacklion 4y ago
  Our banks adds their commission over Visa/MC one. Always. And additional commission for "foreign" ATM, typical. Even if your Visa is in USD / MC is in Euro and not native currency. I don't know how is it work, but I see such transactions in bank's online service as "Transaction Amount: xxx.yy AMD, In account currency: zzz.qq USD" and when you divide one by the other you get something like 5-7% difference with FOREX exchange rate (of course, not to you side!). If your card is in native currency, it is even worse, as there is double-conversion via system currency (USD in case of Visa, EUR in case of MC). I don't know, why our banks have their own exchange rates and not Visa/MC rates and how Visa/MC allows this.

oasisbob 4y ago

> Yes, I'm not from USA, and we don't have any cards with real cash-back. Typically exchange rate for all banks in my country is like xe.com + 3-5%. It is terrible. Ahh, now I understand where the disagreement is coming from. For US cards, it's not cash-back rewards which make them a good value for foreign exchange. It's that the networks (eg, VISA, or Mastercard) offer currency conversion rates which are much closer to par than local retail services. (or, your bank, apparently.) This article has a few good example charts for the networks: https://www.thinmargin.com/blogs/visa-vs-mastercard-who-gives-better-exchange-rates https://www.thinmargin.com/blogs/visa-vs-mastercard-who-give... Typically there is a 1% fee for the service. However, many premium cards will waive this fee as a privilege. If you have access to a card like this, it's a no-brainer.

blacklion 4y ago
Our banks adds their commission over Visa/MC one. Always. And additional commission for "foreign" ATM, typical. Even if your Visa is in USD / MC is in Euro and not native currency. I don't know how is it work, but I see such transactions in bank's online service as "Transaction Amount: xxx.yy AMD, In account currency: zzz.qq USD" and when you divide one by the other you get something like 5-7% difference with FOREX exchange rate (of course, not to you side!). If your card is in native currency, it is even worse, as there is double-conversion via system currency (USD in case of Visa, EUR in case of MC). I don't know, why our banks have their own exchange rates and not Visa/MC rates and how Visa/MC allows this.