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Originally Posted by Nero
Cash (thai baht) probably about 20k, ATM card and credit card for me. Travellers checks, to me, are from the past.
The ATM's in Patong have a 'English' button, which you push and it asks in English what you want to do. It is just as easy as getting cash at home as long as your ATM card is compatable! On the back of mine I have 'Cirrus' and "Maestro', so I look for ATM's that have either posted along the top of the machine and then I am in business.
I always keep the cards in Hotel safe, half the cash with the other half in my lockable suitcase in my room. Only ever have up to 5k baht on me at one time, and in different pockets over my person. I always have photocopies of the bio page of my passport also, one is in the hotel safe the other in my suitcase and also photocopies of the cards.
The charge for using my ATM card is about 250baht (withdrawing 15k baht at a time), I'm on holiday to me this is not a problem.
This is what I do hope it helps.
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An ATM card comes in quite handy, but 15K Baht is a lot to be walking around with in your pocket after you've stopped at the ATM.
Also, I have twice read here recently, posts where the BMs said they either lost their card or came upon a machine which did not return it to them! Then they had to borrow from their GFs to finish out their holiday! There have been cases of fraud with ATM cards also, altho I don't know if that has ever been a problem in LOS.
I should say, as well, that my bank provides traveler's checks at face value with no fee for them. If you had to pay for the Traveller's checks then there would be no advantage in them.
Lots of people use traveller's checks, so although they may not be hi-tech, they are not exactly dinosaurs either. If they are lost or stolen, you can get them replaced, but you should keep track of the numbers of which ones you've spent to do that.
I never change money in the US as the exchanges here charge exorbitant fees. The cash I take is in US currency, which is easy to carry, and can be exchanged same as traveller's checks.
Also when I say banks, I am including the little walk-up window booths, such as on Bangla, which are run by banks, even though the actual bank is elsewhere.
JayBee
P.S. I just noticed this thread is from the Samui section. It seemed to me that most of the bank exchanges there(at least in Lamai), closed at 7:00 P.M. Also, I can't recall if there were exchagnes in the Samui airport, tho it seems likely, but it is different from most other airports,