MSE News: Is it worth buying travellers' cheques?

DDuck58

DDuck58 wrote: »

I will never use traveller's cheques again. I had Visa TC's in Euros that I could not cash onboard Celebrity Silhouette and walked around to 5 banks in the next port. One bank called Visa who indicated that the TC's were too old (2007) and that the clearing house had been closed. Finally found a small exchange office, but didn't cash them all in - Big mistake! Back home, the local exchange office would not touch them since they were in Euros - should have cashed them in Europe! and my bank was very very reluctant to cash them since they were Visa vs AmEx... but if you look at Visa - everything appears okay. I'm cashing in all of my AmEx ones shortly too - just in case!. I never want to be in the position of not having money that I thought I had! Use credit cards and debit cards!

As an update to this- my bank contacted me today and told me that Visa had rejected the cashing of the TC's. As a result, they have withdrawn the money from my account and launched an investigation. Thanks Visa!!... the saga continues!:(

NFH

Why did you ever buy traveller's cheques in the first place? There have been cash machines all over the world for decades. If you wouldn't use them when travelling in the UK, what made you buy them for use abroad?