The waterfront where we are staying at Valle de Bravo, Mexico.
Where are Kevin and Ruth now? Valle de Bravo, Mexico.

Where are Kevin and Ruth going next? Cancun on December 17th!

Saturday, March 9, 2024

Foreign exchange costs

First on the agenda here in Hua Hin was to get some more Thai baht cash. We had made an agreement with our host here to pay him for our accommodation in cash, and in exchange we got a healthy discount. But that discount is partially offset by the fact that it actually cost us money to get that cash.

Almost all Thai banks charge a fee of 220 baht ($6.20 USD, $8.40 CAD) for the privilege of using their ATM.

However, there is one Thai bank, Aeon, that charges a slightly lower fee of 150 baht ($4.25 USD, $5.75 CAD) which saves a couple of bucks. If you can find one!

My google maps showed one location in a shopping mall a couple of kms away, so we walked over there to get the cash.

Community relaxing space at our condo.


The pool area is really well done, with lots of greenery.

So we got to the bank in the big shopping mall, and sure enough, it was an Aeon bank. But they didn't have an ATM! How dumb is that? So we had no choice but to use one of the other ATMs.

So, we paid 220 baht ($6.20 USD, $8.40 CAD) to take out 12,000 baht ($338 USD, $456 CAD).

But the cost doesn't end there. Many people don't realize that all of the major Canadian banks charge a 2.5% foreign exchange fee (except for TD Canada Trust, which charges 3.5%!) on international ATM transactions. They also use the official Visa or Mastercard exchange rate, which in itself is always slightly higher than the official rate, so that the banks can pocket even more of your money without letting you know.

To get that 12,000 baht in cash, my account was debited a total of $479.64 CAD.

So the actual cost of the foreign exchange transaction was over $23 CAD. Approximately $9 of that went to the Thai bank, and $14 went to our home bank in Canada. 

Many people would ignore that cost (or even pretend that it doesn't exist), but we actually include it as an expense in our monthly report, under the "miscellaneous" category. 

Street food restaurant for lunch.

Yummy, for only 50 baht ($1.40 USD, $1.90 CAD) each.

Back at the condo, we did a half hour workout in the exercise room, then went for a swim.


We've tried various other methods of saving money on ATM fees. We have an EQ Bank Canada card which pays you 2.5% annual interest on any money kept in the account, as well as lower costs for transactions. But it takes five days for any transfer amounts to become available to use. Overall, not a bad option.

And we have a Wise card, which has good foreign exchange fees, but a monthly free limit of $350, so it's not ideal either. We tend to use a variety of these methods in our daily travel life!

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And in Canada...

4 comments:

  1. Beautiful pool there at your condo! How was the water temp? I guess what you pay in exchange fees, you semi make up for in inexpensive food; that lunch, for example!

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    1. The pool is gorgeous and the water temperature is quite nice, not sure what the actual temperature is but it was warm enough for Kevin to get so that says something.

      Yes, the prices here are generally inexpensive here but it doesn't help with exchange fees if you are in a country where prices are higher. The exchange fees are always there no matter what country you are in unless it is your own country, the only thing that helps to make it better is that you find a bank in the country you are in that doesn't charge any ATM fees but there isn't any bank here in Thailand that does that. :-(

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    2. I know that some of our friends in Mexico had their ATM foreign transaction fees waived by their banks (ours did not). Ally Bank, an online-only bank, seems like it was one that waived the fees, if memory serves. So there are sometimes ways around getting hit with fees on both ends of the transactions.

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    3. If we use Scotiabank in Mexico then we don't pay any ATM fees. Scotiabank is part of the Global ATM Alliance, so if there is a bank that is associated with that alliance in a country we are traveling in and we used their machine then again we would not pay any ATM fees, unfortunately none of the banks in the countries we have been to this winter are part of that alliance.

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