Holiday money travelling to Toronto

K

KOW

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Travelling to Toronto for 10 days shortly.
Will spend around 4k on food entertainment and bits and bobs. Hotel and flight paid up.
Should I bring a few hundred dollars and use my Mastercard credit card and ATM AIB card or just bring cash?
Thanks folks.
 
How soon are you going?
The FX charges are high enough on cards (1.75% on purchases, and higher for cash at ATM). If you've time you should look at ordering a Revolut card. Top up in Euro from your normal debit debit card, and then convert the currency at virtually no cost. Then it acts like any other debit card.

If you are using your card at ATMs abroad, watch out for ones where that bank charges you fees on top of your own banks.
 
Thanks Red Onion. Going May 5th. Forgive ignorance what exactly is Revolut card and how do i use it and order one. Cheers.
 
Revolut is wonðful for travelling. I use it all the time and have MasterCard as a back up in case Revolut card stolen. I do take some cash too.
 
I am going to America shortly and am hoping to withdraw dollars with my revolut card, up to the limit allowed. Do some of the banks charge for withdrawals from the atm? I know that I need to withdraw without conversion to avoid transaction fees but just wondering about withdrawal fees.
 
Yes, some ATMs will charge a fee for withdrawals. It should be displayed on screen or on the machine.
 
You can also try N26 which, as a bank,has a guarantee whilst also having the interbank exchange rates of Revolut. I use both, and they can both be used in IRL.
 
Was in Toronto recently. Absolutely Loved it. Lyft and Uber were fantastic and relatively cheap. Always checked both apps for price and timing before booking. Uber was invariably cheaper. (Both were more expensive during peak traffic times and half the price outside of these). There is also a very efficient Tram. ATMs I used always displayed fee. I should have verified my Revolut card before I left! I left it too late to book Canadian dollars in my local banks. And, my credit card was cancelled for suspected fraudulent activity while I was there!

Fabulous city though! Enjoy!

Marion
 
We used Revolut in South Africa recently - worked brilliantly. One word of warning though to the person thinking of using it for cash withdrawals, there's a very low monthly limit of €200 for free cash withdrawals. Particularly in Canada you really won't need cash that much at all. Stick to the card.
 
My 2c. I traveled abroad recently and here are my tips.

Dereko is correct above. Revolut charge 2% on ATM withdrawals over €200 per month. Check with your own bank. They may charge a percentage also on top of their exchange rate. So Revolut might still be cheaper.
As my holiday went through the end of a month I withdrew €200 equivalent before the end of the month and €200 at the start of the next to get €400 fee free.

Revolut has a great feature in that you can disable the card from the app. My card is permanently disabled and I only enable when I want to do a transaction. This did catch me out once though when I was at an ATM with the disabled card and no internet access. But a two minute walk to a better signal sorted me out.

If you have a Skype account put a couple of quid on it now. So when you are abroad and if your card gets blocked then you can use Skype to call your bank (bring the contact numbers for all of the credit / debit cards that you have). I had to do that in an airport in Asia. The call took 10 minutes but it was on Skype so cost me about 20c.

I never bring foreign currency with me when travelling. There is always an ATM close to the arrival gates and I've never been stuck.

And install your phone app of choice on your phone (Line, WhatsApp, Viber, Skype, Signal, whatever). If you need to call home or text home use that. Free all the way as long as you get a local SIM or connect to hotel WiFi and the receiving party uses the same app.
 
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