I never understood the exact mechanisms behind this. I’m in Thailand right now. I have a savings account with euros at bank A. I want to withdraw Thai Baht from an atm of bank B. I get the option to withdraw with or without conversion. With conversion is more expensive, so I’m advised to go for without conversion.
Since I don’t have thai baht in my savings, I’m guessing at some point my euros always needs to be converted to baht. Who pays for the conversion in which cases? Why would the ‘with conversion’ option be more expensive? Why would I ever even pick the ‘with conversion’ option?
In: Economics
It’s a particularly bad ripoff because a lot of travellers go to great efforts to locate credit and debit cards that charge no/low foreign exchange rates. My Mom got swindled by DCC on a restaurant payment device in Mexico and it charged her like 5% for currency even though she was using a zero foreign exchange rate card.
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