I don’t seem to have luck with Caixa, a popular bank in Spain. Almost two years ago when we started our world travels I tried to withdraw 500 euros from one of their ATMs in a small village outside Grenada, but the machine gave me 400 euros instead.
This had never happened to me before! My receipt said I withdrew 500 euros, so I wasn’t sure how I was going to prove to my bank, Capital One 360, that I only got 400 euros, but I tried. It took some back and forth, but eventually they refunded my 100 euros.
Flash forward to yesterday. We were in Barcelona for one day and I needed to withdraw euros from an ATM. I walked past three ATMs for Caixa and ignored them. But when I reached the fourth without yet having seen one from another bank, I acquiesced. It couldn’t happen twice, right?
This ATM asked for my information first: How much did I want to withdraw and from what account? And so on. At the end, it asked for my PIN. I didn’t notice their keypad was upside down; that is, the top row started with 7-8-9 instead of 1-2-3. So I entered my PIN incorrectly and my request was rejected. I tried again, but it appeared my card had already been blocked by my bank. I also tried at another ATM, but no luck.
Back at our apartment, I verified online that yes, my ATM card was blocked, and in addition, there was a $1,000 pending hold, which appeared to represent the amount I attempted to withdraw with repeated efforts.
Unfortunately, I had to wait four hours for my bank to open and clear this up. They unblocked my card but I had to wait another day to have access to that $1,000.
No big deal. But I thought what if I was a leaner traveler and couldn’t wait to have access to that cash? Or if the bank needed me to file a claim first and I had to wait another week? This made me think it’s a really good idea to have a backup plan for accessing your cash.
Alternative Methods for Accessing Your Cash
Here are a few thoughts on how you might access your cash in case you lose your ATM card, or otherwise get stuck.
- Have a second bank account available with an additional ATM/Debit card that also does not charge foreign transaction or ATM fees, and has good customer service, and keep these two cards in separate places. The best accounts for these are with Capital One and Charles Schwabb. To learn more about these accounts and others, see this link.
- In an emergency, go ahead and use the ATM/Debit card for your “regular” bank and suck up to the 3% foreign transaction fee and the extra ATM withdrawal fees. I had to do this once, and it bites! In Switzerland, I put $5 worth of gas in our rental car and had to use my Bank of America ATM card, which charged me $15 in fees! It cost $20 to put $5 of gas in the car! Hey, but if it’s an emergency, you gotta do what you gotta do.
- Send money to yourself via Moneygram! One traveling friend is doing this because she didn’t have time to get accounts listed in #1 above and wanted to avoid those extra fees. It may be painful, though, as you always have to find a Moneygram location.
- Have a friend wire money to you through Western Union. You have to locate those Western Union offices, though.
- In an emergency, very carefully, take a cash advance on your credit card at an ATM machine. Because taking a cash advance means finance charges will apply immediately with no grace period, see if you can’t first transfer money online from your bank to your credit card account in an amount a little higher than what you plan to withdraw as a cash advance. That way, after you take the cash advance, you’ll still have a credit or zero balance on your account so no finance charges will apply. Cool, right? But you have to get the timing right and consider how long it takes to transfer money between accounts before you pull a cash advance. We have never done this before, so this is just theory. And we consider it a last resort.
- This one is just for me: When in Spain, avoid using Caixa bank. Ha-ha! I’m sure it works fine for others, but I apparently have some kind of bad joojoo with this bank.
Things happen on the road. You might lose your wallet! You might forget your ATM card in the machine (it’s happened to us). Doing what you can to prepare in advance helps with peace of mind. Then let go and enjoy your travels!
This blog post, including photos, is copyrighted (c) 2016 by Cindy Bailey Giauque and is an original publication of www.mylittlevagabonds.com. Please join us on Twitter and Facebook. Happy travels!