A lot of people asked me about ATM fees when I used my money card in London. The only fee I had for using the card was $-1.00. My bank doesn’t charge me any fees (I think) so it it was just the fee from the other end (although if that’s true I don’t know why only a dollar and not a pound). My experience with ATMs anywhere world wide (England, Costa Rica and Prague) has always been that the ATM has been perfect for a good exchange rate.
Charge cards are good everywhere and as far as I can tell have no extra fees and the banks calculate the exchange rate. Be sure to use one at Garfunkel’s because they use a cool remote gizmo to scan it at your table and print your receipt right there.
Be sure to get a good phone card (AT&T) from Sam’s club or somewhere so you can save $$$ on your calls back home. Be sure to look up on-line what the International numbers are to dial first to call back home. Read the instructions on the card, you can generally hit *** after making one call so you don’t need to dial all the digits again. If you have a 200 minute card you get about 30-60 minutes when calling back to the US (they calculate and tell you how much you have left at the start of each call) and you can add minutes with your charge card at the same really good rate (which is generally > 4 cents at home and 25-35 cents to call home). Use it from a pay phone NOT your room, they’ll really nail you from the hotels overseas. (Use change to call locally when you are overseas, otherwise it seems like you’re actually calling from the US to overseas when you use the card.)
