ATM's

[QUOTE=StrayLight]So I just now made a 1,500 peso withdrawal using a Master Card / Cirrus / Link combination at an HSBC.[/QUOTE]It looks like Master Card is the key here. The last withdrawal I made before leaving BsAs was over the $350 limit and it was with Master Card.

[QUOTE=Punter 127]It looks like Master Card is the key here. The last withdrawal I made before leaving BsAs was over the $350 limit and it was with Master Card.[/QUOTE]Had another discussion with LINK today. The recent 350p limitation imposed by LINK on VISA transactions is a result of Visa International reducing the amount of commission they pay LINK for their transaction processing. LINK is not shy about admitting that they are forcing customers in making more transactions to generate more revenues for themselves.

So how long will it be before Mastercard follows suit with Visa International? Probably not long. It was about 5.5 months between Banelco changing their withdrawal policy, and LINK doing the same.

I did not find voicing my displeasure to LINK to be very effective. Would recommend that those planning to fund their living expenses from ATM cash withdrawals, acquire more than one non-limited, fee minimized card.

Good luck guys - and welcome to the financial frontier!

I wonder if this is limited to Argentina? Seems like the financial process here is always sub-par.

I withdrew another $1,500 pesos today using MC / Cirrus / Link.

I took out about 600 pesos at Banco Francia on Bonpland and Sante Fe in Palermo. I think I could have withdrawn more.

Every U. S. Based bank has its own policy, but it's common to restrict withdrawals to a daily maximum on a bank debit / check card. I discovered that my community bank had a $300 maximum as standard, but would increase it to $500 on my request. I suspect some of the limit issues discussed here were not Argentine.

[QUOTE=Sidney]Specifically, Visa still limited to 300--350 pesos?[/QUOTE]Sidney,

The answer remains yes when using a Visa sponsored ATM card: 350 pesos. You are able to make multiple requests of 350 pesos until you hit your "home" bank daily limit (I. E. $400 USD) So you stand there and make 3 withdrawals within one minute.

Of course the problem is the Argentine Processors / Banks are counting on you having to pay a "per transaction fee", which many of us do not - at least to a limited number of transactions per month. I personally get 8 freebies per month, unfortunately I can not live on 8 withdrawals a month. So "plan B" has been to acquire 2 other ATM cards, also with no fee transactions.

Two words to describe the Argentine banking system: IT SUCKS!

Take care: that you don't pay a transaction fee probably only means that your own bank does not charge one. If there are fees from the other bank, you may very well be hit by them.

No doubt that the Argentine banking system sucks, but it seems to be a Argie bank - VISA double suck.

2 centavos.

El Alemán

Is there an Amex office in BA that will cash a $US check? If so, where is it? That would solve the ATM problem.

[QUOTE=Jtenge]Is there an Amex office in BA that will cash a $US check? If so, where is it? That would solve the ATM problem.[/QUOTE]No it wouldn't, you'd end up paying higher fee's, You think Amex works for nothing?

Exon

Will be in BA for a week soon and noticed this thread. When in Mexico we mostly used our bank debit card until recently. Switched to travelers checks to avoid fees and cashed them at the casa de cambios.

Will that approach work in BA?

Are the fees a bigger deal if you live in BA?

Also, what's this about having two cards from the same bank. How does one do that? Is there any advantage other than increasing the maximum $ amount of daily withdrawals?

It would probably work using travelers' checks, but personally I hate dealing with them.

If you have a Master Card debit card from your bank, your limit here should be whatever your bank's normal limit is. Mine was U$S 500 before I left the States and my bank gave me an U$S 800 limit on asking. I can pull out 2400 pesos a day (really whatever the exchange rate works out to the U$S 800 limit) except for the weekend, when I am limited to 2400 pesos from Friday midnight to Sunday midnight (pain in the ass fraud prevention) but that is my bank's limit, nothing down here.

I have a Visa debit card from another bank where I am indeed limited to 350 pesos per day, but as descrbibed below, that is a local limit applied to Visa cards because of their pricing structure.

The fees charged are not out of the ordinary for a single transaction, it is the fact that LINK is creating this "artificial" limit to force the user to pay more transaction fees because Visa reduced how much it is paying LINK for each transaction. Therefore, if you have a Master Card it is still reasonable IMO.

If you don't mind paying normal fees per transaction for Visa, and don't mind the fact that you have to pull money out more often and therefore pay more in overall fees, Visa is still better than travelers' check as far as convenience goes. Remember - the limit is per transaction, but you can perform as many transactions in a day that your bank allows. You may have a hard time finding a place to cash your checks on Saturday and it may be impossible on Sundays and holidays (of which they have quite a few down here) If you're staying in a hotel, they MAY cash your checks on a holiday or Sunday, but I've never stayed in a hotel here and can't speak to that. I've done that in other countries is why I mentioned it.

For those of us living here, the only issue is that to withraw our money using a Visa card, it costs us more if that's all we have to depend on because we live here and have to do withdraw more often and therefore pay more in fees. Obviously, the more transactions to get out what we need, the more it costs us. If I had to pay rent by extracting money from an account with a Visa card, for example, I would have roughly 8 times more in fees just to get the money out to pay rent than I would if I had to use a Master Card.

If you can, just open a Citibank account, any no-fee or low fee checking account will do, before leaving the states. Just use that debit card and you can draw out $1k / day except as noted the Fri-Mon counting as one long day for max limits.

For living and traveling abroad, Citibank is imo the best option. Interinstitution transfers, in or out, are free from your other bank or investment accounts and unless you need a huge transfer the 1 or 3 day transfer isn't that big a deal compared to a wire.

Withdrawing from any Citibank branch around the world is no fee. Every now and then one branch somewhere screws up and tries to tack on a foreign funds withdrawal fee, but that only happened twice in my 1.5yrs in BasAs and a call to Citibank gets that reversed.