Help!

[Russ]

I'm going to study in Guangzhou (Zhongshan) for 5 months. I'll use up around 3500 euro during my stay. For some obvious reasons I don't want to bring that big sum of money, so I was thinking of using a foreign card like Maestro but then I found out that my bank charge quite a lot for that privilege. Also the fact that I'll be withdrawing 2000 euro the first day I step my feet there (for school fee, 5 months room, deposit, etc) makes it almost impossible to use that card due to the withdraw limit (in my country as well as in ATM's in China I guess). Using wire transfer is also difficult because I heard it takes around 2 weeks to get there and I need the 2000 euro exactly on the day I arrive there.

So I'm back to square one again... looks like I'll have to bring that much cash with me.

Is there any other way?

[smalldog]

Travellers cheques would probably do the trick. I would just take cash though -- you're more likely to have it stolen as you withdraw it from an ATM in China than while you're on the plane. Keep it somewhere like the inside pocket of your jacket and don't take your jacket off!

[Celso Pin]

Visa has (had?) a service named "TravelMoney" were they sold you "pre-paid ATM cards".

there is no additional charges for the first 2 withdraws, as well as, no charges at all. You could split your money in several cards (split the risk, and avoiding limits to draw) and the cards are password protected and could be replaced in case...

This service is not linked to have a visa credit card... you just go to the bank and put the money in the card(s).

I have used that some (a lot... 1997) years ago and it worked very well... but it was not in China...

and regarding the money, a neckwallet to put under the shirt, and an underwear wallet could be useful...

[kaisatsu]

When we first moved over here, we brought $2000 US in traveller's cheques to get us started. I think taking even more would have been fine as well. As long as you keep them safe, they're a little harder to steal than cash, and if they do get lost/stolen, the company that issued them will usually replace them. Aside from that, we just used our US ATM card (Visa) for a while, although we could only withdraw around 2500 RMB per day, and we got charged a few US dollars each time we did.

My vote is definitely for the traveller's cheques. Just plan ahead a little if you're going to take a lot of money, and talk to the bank (or whoever's issuing them) ahead of time. At the same time we came here, a friend of ours was returning home to India, and he carried his entire bank balance ($15,000 US) in traveller's cheques. But since he went at the last minute, the bank only had $100 cheques, so he had to sign 150 of them (and sign them all again when he deposited them in India)! Talk about writer's cramps!

[Russ]

Visa's TravelMoney...

I've checked it out but for Europe it's only available in UK (I think).

Traveller's Cheque...

Thanks! I think I'm going to check this with my bank.

[Russ]

I read in other threads that traveller's cheque doesn't work as easy as it sounds. So I was wondering about this..

I have this worldwide accepted card so basically I can stuck this card into any ATM in the world and withdraw money in the local currency. My initial problem was the ATM withdraw limit, so I was wondering if I could just walk into a bank in China with this card and withdraw some local currency from the bank instead from the ATM. Anybody has any experience in this? Does it matter if I tell them I'm going to open a bank account and this money I'm withdrawing is my first deposit?

[imron]

I've done it before with a visa (debit) card, though if you do this, there will possibly be a minimum withdrawal amount (when I did it, it was 1200RMB). I don't know if this will work with just a normal ATM card. The other thing to keep in mind is that in many places, the only ATMs that will accept international transactions are the Bank of China and CITIC ones.

[Lu]

In my experience (Beijing, BLCU) you can change traveller cheques at the bank, and use your bank card at the ATM (and not at the counter of the bank, technically impossible, not because they don't want to give it to you, so telling them you'll deposit it at their bank is most likely not going to help).

I don't think there's a limit for traveller cheques, but there is a fee for exchanging them, although in China it's not high (in Taiwan it was E10 for traveller cheques in euros, ridiculous).

And they're not complicated. You buy them at home, sign once, write down the numbers; then go to China, bring cheques and passport to a bank, sign cheques, show passport, get RMB. If they're stolen you tell the tr.ch. company which numbers were stolen, and you get the money back (at least that's the idea, I have no experience with this).

I hope this helps.