Buying some yen for travelling to Japan

U

Up Rovers

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Hi,

Relative travelling to Japan later on in the year is trying to buy some yen to no avail. AIB and other banks don't provide yen so just wondering if there is an easier option? I see some of the credit unions can provide it through Fexco Bureau de Change.
 
CiaranT said:
An Post have high FX margin charges. You are better off with Revolut.
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Feedback from Japan is that cash is king. A lot of places won't take cards. Suggest loading money into a visa credit (or Revolut) and withdrawing from an atm over there.
 
Luternau is correct. Cash is king. Also unless things have changed a lot of the ATMs close at 7:30pm so they could find themselves without a way to get money if they needed it. They might also be paying high cross border fees since Japan is outside the EU. I agree that Credit Union/Fexco is the best bet. Also it used to be the case that Bureau de Change in Japan can be limited to Dollars and Yen only. They may not take Euro.
 
Im just back from Japan, while some places only take cash I would still say card is accepted in a large portion of places. Use the atms in the 7/11 convenience stores to withdraw money from your Revolut or N26 cards. N26 has a slightly cheaper foreign exchange rate. Pay by card as much as possible to get the cheapest exchange rate.

If you are paying for hotels by credit card then get a Curve card. Curve will exchange the foreign currency amount into euro and then charge your credit card - saving you the 3% foreign currency fee.
 
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I got back from Japan a couple of days ago; I had no issue using my Revolut card. It’s the way to go in my view.
 
We were in Japan last year. When I went to collect Yen that I had ordered from a local bank they wouldn't give it to me as I wasn't a customer(a condition that they failed to tell me). Had to travel the following day without cash.
On arrival we had no problem getting cash from the ATMs at the airport in Tokyo. Didn't find it a problem paying by card in hotels and department stores/malls etc. Smaller shops require cash alright but plenty of ATMs available.
 
Could be a lot of Irish rugby types home now with sore heads and pockets full of Yen, if only you could find them!
 
noproblem said:
Could be a lot of Irish rugby types home now with sore heads and pockets full of Yen, if only you could find them!
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They all seemed to be using Revolut to be honest.

No wonder bank share prices are under so much pressure with disruptors like Revolut stealing their lunch.
 
Gordon Gekko said:
They all seemed to be using Revolut to be honest.

No wonder bank share prices are under so much pressure with disruptors like Revolut stealing their lunch.
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It's all well and good until Revolut crashes or something happens to your account with no explanation. It has happened to me three times, two of which were abroad. It'll be great if they can iron out those problems (and get operating under a banking licence, of course).
 
24601 said:
It's all well and good until Revolut crashes or something happens to your account with no explanation. It has happened to me three times, two of which were abroad. It'll be great if they can iron out those problems (and get operating under a banking licence, of course).
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The legacy banks have had plenty of those random issues too. N26 has a full European banking license
 
money_man said:
The legacy banks have had plenty of those random issues too. N26 has a full European banking license
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I've never had a card stop working randomly. The app goes down fairly regularly too. I'm not familiar with N26 but I know that Revolut are a bit hit and miss. They've also had their fair share of compliance issues and I'm not too sure their aggressive growth strategy will result in profit before they run out of money. I definitely wouldn't be advising anyone to leave anything other than pocket money in their Revolut account.

Sorry for being off-topic.
 
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