American Express announced with no notice that Serve & Bluebird cards would no longer be able to be used for ATM withdrawals internationally, I can only assume that there was regulatory/legal pressure to do so as leaving some of your cardholders stranded overseas when you’ve given them no warning isn’t a great way to build goodwill. I thought I’d look at some of the best options for withdrawing cash overseas from an ATM, since apparently some people were using these cards for that purpose even though they charged a $2.50 fee.
Contents
List Of Options
Schwab Bank High Yield Investor Checking Account
This account has the following features:
- No monthly fees
- No international or domestic ATM fees
- No foreign transaction fees
- 0.06% APY
- Card runs on the Visa network
This looks perfect and there is also a $100 bonus attached to this account! There is a downside though, a hard pull is done on your Equifax credit report when you open this card.
Betterment Checking Account
This account has the following features:
- No monthly fees
- No international or domestic ATM fees
- No foreign transaction fees (Visa fees gets reimbursed by Betterment)
- Card runs on Visa network
- Accompanying high-yield savings account
- No hard pull to open
- Our original post here
Aspiration Summit
This account has the following features:
- No monthly fees
- No ATM fees (ATMs with NYSE logo will have no fees and all other fees will be refunded at end of billing cycle)
- Foreign transaction fee of up to 1.1%
- 0.25% APY if your balance is below $2,500 or 1% APY if it’s above $2,500
Fidelity Visa Gold Check Card
This account has the following features:
- No monthly fees
- All ATM fees are refunded to your cash management account
- Foreign transaction fee of
1%0% - Card runs on the Visa network
- Can be used on any ATM that has the following logos: Visa®, Plus®, or Star®
- 0.07% APY
Bank of America Global ATM Alliance
Bank of America is part of something known as the Global ATM Alliance, basically the idea is that if you use a card from Bank of America to withdraw money from any of the other financial institutions in the alliance you won’t be charged a fee. This sounds great right? Wrong. They still charge you a 3% foreign transaction fee, so if you’re withdrawing any decent amount of money this will likely be much higher than the typical ATM fee.
Final Thoughts
Hopefully I’m missing an account that has no ATM or foreign transaction fees (FTF) and doesn’t require a hard pull (let me know in the comments if something should be added). If not it’ll really depend on your own circumstances if the hard pull is worth it to avoid 1% in FTF’s or not.
[Read:Â Low Fee & No Fee ATMs]
Capital One should be on this list. They don’t charge fees for using their cards at any ATM (Cap One or otherwise) and don’t assess a transaction fee on withdrawals in a foreign currency.
But they don’t reimburse fees charged by the foreign bank. The above banks do.
More and more banks are offering it these days. It’s not even uncommon anymore.
Needham Bank, First Republic, TD Beyond Checking all offer unlimited ATM fee reimbursement with no FTF.
There are also many banks that offer ATM fee reimbursement up to a dollar amount every month with no FTF (sometimes with some monthly requirements to meet): DCU, nbkc (chex sensitive), Salem Five Direct, PSECU, etc.
Depending on the country you’re travelling to, a no FTF card might be all you need, since there are no ATM surcharges in many countries especially in Europe. So a special callout to no FTF debit cards: Capital One 360, Discover debit, Robinhood, BECU, WSECU.
I’m sure there are way more examples than I listed above. I’ve barely scratched the surface. All the above are more deserving of being on this list than, e.g. Bank of America and Aspiration. I’m giving Fidelity a pass since there are many DPs of Fidelity not actually charging a FTF on ATM withdrawals.
Aspiration used to be good for international travel and ATM withdraws; however, they changed the way it works in April 2020. Now you have the option of paying for “Aspiration Plus” for $3.99 per month or $44.99 per year. For that fee you get 1% APY on the first $10,000 in your account and 1 out-of-network ATM fee reimbursement per month. Plus a few other small benefits. This obviously isn’t worth nearly what they are charging for it.
SoFi Money reimburses all ATM fees. Not sure about foreign exchange or transaction fees.
For anybody checking this page post 2020 – SoFi no longer offers unlimited international ATM reimbursements for new account holders. They made the change in the summer of 2020. Prior account holders were grandfathered in, however.
Probably should note that Aspiration Summit has been renamed to Spend & Save, and free withdrawals are limited to 5 times per month. The footer on the page also notes, “there is a foreign transaction fee of one percent that is not waived, which will be included in the amount charged to your account.”
On that note, Level Bank could also be added to the page, as they allow 3 free withdrawals per month.
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/level-checking-savings-hybrid-account-with-2-10-apy-more/
Needham Bank Checking also offers unlimited worldwide ATM withdrawals.
https://www.needhambank.com/personal/checking/
Radius Bank’s checking accounts have unlimited worldwide ATM rebates too, but their disclosures state that the “international exchange fees” are not waived, possibly referring to the 1% Visa fee.
https://radiusbank.com/personal/rewards-checking/
SoFi should also be on here, but they have conflicting information about whether they reimburse the 1% Visa fee.
Footnote on this page: https://www.sofi.com/money/ “there is a foreign exchange fee of 1% charged by Visa that is not waived.”
Footnote on this page: https://www.sofi.com/money/atm-fee-reimbursements/ “will also reimburse any foreign exchange fees charged by Visa.”
Fidelity CMA accounts certainly pay more than 0.07%. That is pretty close to what Schwab pays though.
SoFi should be included in this list as they reimburse all debit fees world wide.
Know this is a dated thread but planning a trip to Europe and looking for suggestions on. May just buy Euros beforehand if no other good option is available. Just got rid of Cap One 360 due to their bizarre doing away with free online bill pay and bank tellers. May consider Schwab.
Don’t get me wrong but amex gold doesn’t have any foreign transaction fee!
If you’re BoA Preferred Honors, which means they refund all atm fees, does this mean they’ll still charge a 3% Forex fee?