Is pre loading card better for foreign holiday exchange rates

B

Berberis

Registered User
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Hi Folks,
We are off to South Korea shortly and was toying with the idea of pre-loading my Visa credit card and using the ATM's over there rather than bringing a load of cash and changing it into Won there.
From what I can gather the charges for this at the atm's are 1.75% and a minimum of €3 per atm transaction, So I assume the things to remember is to only take out at least the equivalent of €200 and to make sure I also don't use the card for any major transactions that will bring me out of the pre-loaded limit. (Hotel is already paid for, so I don't envisage any major transactions except holiday money so to speak)
Would anybody know if the exchange rate I would get at the ATM would be better or worse than what I might get at the local banks/bureau of excahnge.
Also are there any other pitfalls I should be mindfull of.
Cheers
 
Major pitfall is that if your card is swiped/cloned and someone takes out the cash - you have no cover/insurance by Visa.
 
+1 I wouldn't consider it worth the risk of bringing a loaded credit card, have you a visa debit card ? You could instead put the money in that account and withdraw it at an ATM from there, that way the money is still covered for fraud whereas credit balances on credit cards are not.
In my experience I've generally found ATM exchange rates not too bad in various countries, when you consider the convenience, banks might have a better headline rate but then comm or charges, it's swings and roundabouts I think. Haven't been to Korea so no particular experience of that country but wherever I go I just use my visa debit to withdraw cash and have never had a very bad exchange rate.
I would always try though to use only an ATM of a major bank, not one of the random ones operated by god-knows-who , there can be extra or hidden charges on those
 
What about just using a non-preloaded credit card and paying lumps off it online every few days so you don't get caught for much interest but still have fraud protection?
 
Thanks for the replies folks. I'd never thought of the fact that I would not have fraud protection on the credit part of my card.
I do also have a visa debit card, so I could use that. Only drawback is that the transaction rate is 3.5% so that would be quite a bit if we withdraw around €1,500 or more over the course of the holiday, as we would need money for a family of 4 over 2 weeks.
Other thing I could do is not pre-load the credit card and use that for large purchases such as meals etc and then use the Debit card for ATM cash
 
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