Travelers Cheques

[Habs]

Has anyone had any trouble cashing American express travelers cheques [ Canadian funds] in Thailand. We had a problem at the airport and also today in Cha- am,would not cash them at SCB bank. No reason given made us sign and date took them as usual and then said could not do. Never happend in the 20 years we have being comming over here. Also cashed some last week at same bank no problem....Go figure..They just make it harder and harder to come here, kind of gets me to thinking about going some where else next year...Any ones thoughts....

Edited December 21, 2014 by Habs

[gerry123]

your getting off light if that's your biggest problem in Thailand , joking aside just go to another bank plenty of them

some excellent some absolutely crap for various different services

[MJCM]

I just recently (1 week ago) cashed my last 10 TC's at KTB (Krung Thai Bank), however they where Euro TC's.

Maybe try there ?

[Naam]

some banks don't want to deal with dinosaur papers which cause a lot of work and hardly any fees.

[Simon1985]

2 months ago. I went to my local Kasikorn Bank with 1000GBP in American Express Travellers Cheques(5 Cheques 200GBP Each). Showed them the cheques and confirmed the rate with them. I signed all of the cheques. The cashier took a photo copy of my passport and then phoned American express(security measure). She then told me I can only cash 600 GBP. I replied what I am going to do with the other 2 signed cheques. The response was not my problem. Lucky I went to another bank and managed to cash them. If they had noticed the cheques were already signed I wouldnt have been able to cash them. Travellers cheques are to much hassle these days. Thailand is not the only country where its getting hard to cash them. You are a lot better off with a pre-paid travelling currency card. You can load them as you go so you can reduce the amount of money you can get scammed and if you withdraw cash from a banks ATM and conceal your Pin Number and pay for everything in cash you will be fine. In Thailand there is a charge off 150 baht everytime you withdraw cash but if you withdraw 250GBP-300GBP a time this is okay as you get charged the same for cashing T/C now.

Edited December 21, 2014 by Simon1985

[zierf1]

Thanks for the info. I guess I'll be taking 99 ben franklins and hiding them up my rearend for safekeeping from now on. Cash is king.

[phetphet]

Kasikorn has a limit of £600/day on T/C's. I changed £1000 last week at BKK Bank.

It always seems to take ages now, about an hour last time, as they phone Amex for security checks, then pass me the phone to talk to them. I even explained that I had cashed some from the same batch, with the same teller in same branch a few weeks previously. Makes no difference. Still takes ages. It's not the tellers fault, its Amex's security checks that they have to follow.

I had a similar problem as you in KBK recently as I had signed all cheques and they discovered their "system was down". Luckily the teller walked me next door to a BKK Bank branch, explained the situation, and verified that I had signed them in her presence.

[Pib]

some banks don't want to deal with dinosaur papers which cause a lot of work and hardly any fees.

Oh, Thai banks corrected that little fee issue around 6 months ago when they raised their traveler cheque cashing fee by 5 fold. That is, Bt30 to Bt150 per cheque...then add in the govt Bt3 fee (govt didn't raise their fee...only the banks) and we now have Bt153 per cheque. Dinosaur paper fee issue fixed...T-Rex paper is now very profitable.

[Simon1985]

some banks don't want to deal with dinosaur papers which cause a lot of work and hardly any fees.

Oh, Thai banks corrected that little fee issue around 6 months ago when they raised their traveler cheque cashing fee by 5 fold. That is, Bt30 to Bt150 per cheque...then add in the govt Bt3 fee (govt didn't raise their fee...only the banks) and we now have Bt153 per cheque. Dinosaur paper fee issue fixed...T-Rex paper is now very profitable.

I was lucky I bought Travellers Cheques which were 200GBP per cheque. On my last trip I had cheques that were 50GBP. Would have cost another 459 Baht to change 200GBP. You think they would have a computer system were they could check the Travellers Cheques rather than having to phone up and spend 10-15 minutes on the phone. I wont be buying any more Travellers Cheques, too out dated.

Edited December 22, 2014 by Simon1985

[FritsSikkink]

Why would you buy travellers checks? There are atm's everywhere, much easier and a lot quicker to use. No signing the papers twice or need to bring a passport. Travellers checks have passed there sell by date years ago.

[Pib]

If a person is trying to minimize fees and "if" your foreign debit/credit card carries a foreign transaction fee with 3% being common and its a card that don't reimburse the Thai bank foreign card ATM use fee of Bt180 such a card can be pricier than using traveler cheques.

Le'ts say B16,500 at an exchange rate of Bt33/USD (that's $500) is withdrawn from an ATM using a card that charges a 3% foreign transaction fee (i.e., Bt495) and then add on the Bt180 fee that totals Bt675 in fees....that's over $20 in fees for that one ATM withdrawal.

But say the person brought over travelers cheques in $500 denomination the exchange rate will be approx Bt0.1 lower than the Visa/Mastercard exchange rate which was Bt33, so 32.9 times $500 equates Bt16450. So a person lost Bt50 due to a lower exchange rate in comparison to using a card...so let's call that a Bt50 fee. Now add on the Bt153 cashing fee per cheque and we have a total of Bt203 in fees....that's a little of $6 in fees for cashing that one cheque.

Bt203 in fees for using the traveler cheque in comparison to Bt675 in fees for a typical card with typical foreign transaction fee which don't reimburse....using traveler cheques would be three fold "cheaper" assuming you got them issued for free. Plus, you do have safety of loss or theft with traveler cheques.

But of course if you have a no foreign transaction fee debit card that also reimburses then going the ATM route is definitely the way to go assuming your card works in the ATM. And if using traveler cheques be sure to bring large denomination cheques to minimize the associated cashing fee....cashing small denomination cheques is just filling the bank's pocket with fees...money that should have went into your pocket.

[Habs]

Went back to the bank yesterday and know problem,soon as they saw us we were waved over and the cheques were cashed. Apparently system was down and happens quite often on the weekend. So needless to say will cash during the week from now on... ........

[phetphet]

Went back to the bank yesterday and know problem,soon as they saw us we were waved over and the cheques were cashed. Apparently system was down and happens quite often on the weekend. So needless to say will cash during the week from now on... ........

When they say "the system is down" it can cover many reasons.

One time they told me that, the problem was in fact that Amex's phone line was not working. I used my smartphone to go online and get another number, rang them,and they in turn gave me another number to ring. Gave that to the teller, and she sorted things. Took over an hour though.

Now I ask them to check before I sign the T/C's. Funnily enough, I went to the same teller in same BKK yesterday and things went much smoother this time around.

One thing that does seem to cause major delays is if you use T/C's that are a year or two old. I had some that I had previously not spent and they caused all sorts of problems. Seemed to raise flags, even though I thought there was no time limit on them.