@kc430 wow... Charles Schwab account sounds amazing!!!

That's what I need!

Thanks for sharing the details.

@kc430 touches on an important point. If you contact your bank before you leave, and tell them what you want, you can usually get it. The limits are there for the customer's protection, you can ask them to altered.

@tigertiger thanks and a good thing for me to do before I leave!

Well you can ask to have your daily limit upped, but that's about it. BoA is not going to waive any fees you are due unless your account level is entitled to it, but no account, even VIP, avoids the 3% fx fee now.

Most of the brokerages and banks that do offer free international ATM withdrawals do so because they don't operate their own network or are network consortium members. It's just easier for them to pay the fees or refund them for their customers in order to offer a viable ATM product.

Just be careful of Amex. If they offer a card or product with no international withdrawal or fx fees, it's still no good. They just bury all the fees in the extremely poor exchange rate they give.

Yeah - these people are bankers, after all. They'll serve you only as far as they can use you.

We all use bank services, and as long as we all want low/no service charges on our checking account, or minutely higher interest on our savings accounts, we should realize that someone else is paying for this. Maybe we are also paying, or will pay, somewhere else down the line.

Ultimately, if you benefit from the share values of banks you are part of the problem If you have a pension plan, 401K, or ISA, etc. that includes you.

@Tiger: Right.