Cathy and Gary's South East Asia Travel Pages
ATM'S - BANKS - CREDIT CARDS
Never change your money to Thai Baht before you leave your country of residence, you will get a far better exchange rate in Thailand. There are exchange booths at the airport, just change enough to get you to your hotel and change the rest at one of the many exchange booths. This is perfectly safe as most Thai exchange booths are operated by Banks.
You will not have a problem finding an ATM in Phuket, they are everywhere, including the airport and in most 7/11, Family Marts and all shopping centers. All the ATM'S have instructions in English and the maximum withdrawal per day can vary from 10,000baht to 30,000 baht, depending on the atm and of course on your own banks daily limit.
Look for stickers displaying Maestro, Cirrus or Plus on the machines and if it's on your card you will not have a problem. Always make sure you have notified your home bank that you will be using your card overseas, this can be done by a phone call or online via your Internet Banking.
We use Westpac Debit Cards and have not found a machine yet that we cannot draw money from and have never had a problem in all the years we have been using atm machine.
There is on average a 220baht charge for using foreign cards in Thai atm's. Also, if you are given the choice make sure you DO NOT continue with the conversion when you are withdrawing cash, this will give you a much lower exchange rate, so click on Continue Without Conversion, this will give you a good exchange rate that is just below the cash rate.
Your card comes out of the machine last, after you receive your cash so do not forget it.
Below is an example of the comparison when I withdrew 25,000baht from the atm compared to exchanging cash.
We stay in Thailand for up to 6 months each year, we take a small amount of cash and then use the ATMs. The rate is good if you do NOT accept the conversion in your home currency option, so the fees you pay sort of level it out if you withdraw the maximum of 25,000 or 30,000baht.
Of course, it is not worth it for people who draw out small amounts every couple of days, but for the normal traveler who stays say 10 days and might make 2 withdrawals then it’s safer and worth it.
My opinion only of course.
Here is an example from my 25,000baht withdrawal from Bangkok Bank ATM, but I stress again it is so very important NOT TO ACCEPT the Conversion to your home currency that comes up on the screen, make sure you click on Continue Without Conversion otherwise you will receive a much lower rate. The photos will also show you step by step the stages of using a Bangkok Bank ATM in Thailand.
We bank with Westpac and use our debit card, so Westpac charge us $5 for using a foreign atm.
The cash rate in Phuket at the time was 24.8 to the dollar.
I took out 25,000baht from the atm.
The Bangkok Bank ATM also charged a 220baht fee, on your statement this is added onto your cash withdrawal. So, it shows up as a 25,220baht withdrawal.
On my statement, the amount taken out was $999.15 which included the Westpac foreign transaction fee of $29.00.
So, for the benefit and safety of using ATM’s it was totally worth it as I received a better rate than cash, receiving around 25 (instead of the 24.8 for cash) and it totally balanced out the fees I was charged.
As you can see cash is not always better and for safety etc we will continue to use atm’s.
We rarely use our credit cards overseas but all major shopping centers, supermarkets, 7/11, hotels accept them. In 20 years we have only had 2 friends have their cards skimmed overseas, we know of more people who have had this happen to them in Australia, including ourselves.
If you want to go into an actual bank to make a cash withdrawal from a credit card instead of using an atm there are banks everywhere in all the tourist areas and everyone should have an emergency card with at least a couple of thousand dollars on it as you never know what could happen!
The link below will give you the exact up to the minute live rates from all banks in Thailand for changing cash, travellers cheques and withdrawing cash from atm machines.