This request comes up every few months, and it seems that the rules change between each posting of a new thread. Fee-free accounts start charging fees, favourable exchange rates become unfavourable (by comparison), and new and unexpected (not to mention unwelcome) charges are often quietly imposed. It seems that every time we travel (admittedly, only once every four years), we have to use a brand new set of strategies.
This time we're off to the US, and would be grateful to hear if anyone has managed to find a strategy —short of carrying $US5000 in cash in false heels — which will be useful to us for this trip. Last time, I might mention, we settled for the Citibank Debit card, but the "fee-free" transactions only applied if we used a Citi ATM…… and in five weeks we found exactly zero of these!
Why do you need $5,000 in cash? Most costs you can probably pay on credit using a fee free card or on your Citibank card. Get $1k out of an ATM using your Citibank account as soon as you arrive and make that last for the trip by paying whatever you can on card