Do alot of places around town accept visa or do I need to bring alot of cash with me? I was never one to carry much cash so I always use my visa debit card
Just be careful - no way to tell which are true, but there's tons of reviews on tripadvisor of cards being cloned at various establishments.
If I was going to leave the resort, I'd use cash. Fortunately, the only time I leave the resort...I'm following Steve to the Boobs Cruise boat!
As someone who used to work for a credit card company, I'm not sure I'd say the exchange rates are "fair"... but I guess compared to some places I suppose they are. If you read the terms and conditions when you got your credit card (haha) it will have detailed how much they are marking up the exchange rate... it's typically between 2.5% and 4%. And given the pressure the banks are to keep their profits going up despite a slow economy and increasing regulations that cut into their profit potential, I doubt these markups will be coming down anytime soon. Just my two cents. I've been able to get a markup of under 2% by exchanging in Canada before we leave, but I've also seen some local places charging 4%+. I guess if you only exchanging $200 or something relatively small the difference isn't super meaningful, but I guess I just don't like the feeling that I'm paying more than I need to!
I also work for a bank on the credit card side and we charge what's called "foreign transfer fee's" which are generally around 2.50% of whatever your purchase price is. Not sure if that's what the previous poster is referring to or not as I don't believe we do any marking up of the exchange rate but every bank is different. :huh: But like Trish said, when using your card in a foreign country (especially when their main business is tourism), the chance of your card being counterfeited does go up unfortunately. Personlly, I would never use my card in Jamaica. We've seen some fraud out of Cancun but not as much other places. Your bank will reimburse if you if it happens but if you don't want to deal with the hassle, it may not be worth it. Just my two cents. Let me re-phrase what I said about "foreign countries" as this board is varied with people from all over the world. I guess what I should have said was places where there are alot of tourists have a higher rate of counterfeit cloning of cards as we see it alot in California, Vegas, Miami, parts of Italy and France, etc. Sorry if I may have offended anyone.
Yup... I didn't even bring my cards out of the resort because it wouldn't be worth the hassle if they clone them. I had a friend who was visiting cancun once, and was trying to book excursions through some local place, and he caught the guy red handed trying to clone his card...
My credit card got cloned in Cancun and they charged $14,000 on it before I even got back to the States and knew what happened. So I would suggest using no cards in Mexico.
same here.. yes my card got cloned a couple of years ago in cancun,I only used it in a couple of restaurants and 1 shop.:icon_surprised: luckily my credit card company spotted something dodgy and refused the transactions, so I didnt lose out....
I'd avoid the card if at all possible. You know what you are being charged with cash and they can't clone it and takeover your account. Unless you have a special travel oriented card you get hit with the foreign transaction fee too as mentioned which would add up very quikcly if you used it often.
