Travels With Sheila has already discussed how important it is to notify both bank and credit card issuers what contries you intend to visit. Both to eliminate identity theft and avoid problems using your credit card. Below are more mistakes, all made by us. Number One, was added to “beware of” a few months ago in France and this one tip alone will definitely save you money:
1. We were taken aback when a hotel checkout person asked, “Do you want the bill in dollars or local currency?” Huh? We didn’t think twice and said, Dollars. Big mistake. When the Visa bill arrived, this particular transaction had a higher rate of conversion. In layman’s terms, the bill would have been less if charged in Euros rather than Dollars to Euros to Dollars. Another charge on the same bill had a higher rate from a restaurant in France that automatically charged us in Dollars. If we had carefully read the slip while signing, we would have seen “Dollars” next to the charge, and could have corrected it then and there. Duh…live and learn. You want to see the currency of the country you are visiting on that credit card slip. Euros, Yuan, Pesos…not Dollars.
This process is called “dynamic conversion.” The merchant converts the bill to U.S. dollars (or your currency) right then and there. The problem is that the merchant can use any exchange rate they want at that particular time, not the going wholesale rate applied when the charge hits your bank for conversion which is going to cost you…MORE MONEY! Watch out for it…;
2. Many Travelers don’t carefully read their credit card receipts (one example above). Hasn’t a restaurant in your home country ever given you somebody else’s check? Not only should you be carefully looking at the receipt to make sure it’s yours but also that an extra drink, or wrong entree hasn’t been charged;
3. Double check your hotel bill and make sure the hotel tears up the credit card receipt usually swiped when checking in “for supplemental charges.” On lengthy stays at hotels with half pension (breakfast and dinner), make a short list of drinks/wine to check off against the final bill. There have been too many instances of “wrong drinks” added to our bill. People do make mistakes;
4. Take a few minutes to learn about the local currency. Use Currate.com on your mobile phone. Curate will show you the daily updated conversion rates, and images of over 180 world currencies. If you don’t carry a mobile phone with you, convert on the computer. No computer? Use a little calculator. Or…gasp…a paper and pencil. Otherwise, it’s just money down the toilet;
5. Do you think that only a “star-ranked” hotel will do? Think again. Hotel rankings are not the same in every country. A four-star hotel in China recently had the filthiest, carpet in our room and, I kid you not, our feet actually stuck to it! On the opposite side of this spectrum, a little no-star guesthouse was small, had no frills but immaculately clean rooms. If your tour operator gives a choice, stay in lesser ranked hotels or guesthouses to save money and experience the charm. It still rankles that I paid three times the amount a Days Inn Forbidden City hotel room cost to stay at the highly rated Peninsula Hotel in Beijing with smallish rooms and a broken bed;
6. You can tell travelers over and over again. Secure valuables in a money belt. Avoid wearing flashy jewelry. And, do they listen? No. Men think that wallets or money in a deep pocket are secure. Even ex-Marine has said, “No one will be able to get in this pocket.” Double Ha, ha… That was until an expert pickpocket managed to get into Mort’s “deep pocket” in Tallinn, Estonia. Money Belt inside the pants! Women wear jewelry and I am an offender. However, cover it up! Turn the ring around, stick hair or hat over earrings and tuck the necklace inside a shirt, sweater or jacket. Patty had her beautiful necklace completely visible and it was torn off her neck in Riga, Latvia. Two incidents in the same trip should make any tourist more careful in the future. Do you really want the hassle of replacing a passport, calling credit card companies, and filling out a police report while on vacation? No, you don’t; and
7. Never step into a “gypsy” taxi without a meter and make certain the driver pulls the meter down in whatever taxi you select. If you don’t speak the language, use pantomime or write it down on a piece of paper. They’ll get the idea and if he/she doesn’t, immediately get out of the taxi and take another one. If you are in a country without meters, agree on a price before.
Been there…done it all? Don’t forget that there are probably still a few zillion other mistakes just waiting for us to discover and with some luck, they’ll just be little money-costing errors rather than life-threatening disasters. Happy traveling!
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