A lot of places in Indonesia and Vietnam charge 3% for taking Visa/Mastercard and 5% for taking American Express. One of the owners of a business in Indonesia I was talking to explained that it is against the merchant terms and agreements like it is in the US but everyone seems to do it regardless and visa/mc/amex enforcement against this practice are lax.
I’ve thought about letting various places charge me 3% and then calling up my credit card company later to get it removed but it isn’t worth the hassle and I’m on vacation. So yes, cash is still king when traveling here.
Citibank and HSBC have a huge presence worldwide and have a good number of ATMs and branches. The optimal way to exchange cash is withdraw from your account via the teller in US dollars and then exchange currency at a location that’ll give you better rates. Also there’s a different exchange rate for $100 bills and smaller denominations. I forgot which one got the better exchange rate but I”m sure smaller denominations would because of the massive amount of counterfeiting with $100 bills.
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