Originally Posted by
othermike27
Same here on finding Flyer Talk. ^^
At the time, my local bank's ATM card would permit $200 per day withdrawal limit, and 3 free draws per month before imposing a small charge per draw (couple bucks, I think). But that was at least reasonable and something you could live with. I later "upgraded" it to a MC debit card just to get the $500/day ATM draw limit and they also dropped all the fees on their end. So that is about the best deal going. For intl. travel, I now pre-spot a bank-owned ATM near our first hotel and draw currency there or wherever is convenient and not charging outrageous fees using this ATM card, and also bring a mix of 0% FTF credit cards for charges.
The one card with a 1% FTF that I have relied on is the USAA MC (old style) for the convenience of offline PIN as first CVM. Sadly, that will drop back to signature-preferred when it renews next Feb, so we'll have to see how well that works. (I think jeff jaguar said his had issues doing transactions he had done successfully before with the old style card.) It was great while it lasted: bought train tickets in Belgium this spring when nobody else's card worked at the kiosk.
Just to be fair, the "new" downgraded USAA mc did work everywhere I tried it this past summer but while last year (2013) it worked as chip and pin, this summer (2014) at many of the same merchants, it was a chip and signature card. I did try to use it at an SNCF kiosk at CDG but what happened is before I left, I changed the pin online and tried to use the new pin but apparently when you change a pin on this card and several others, you have to make at least one emv transaction to re-write the offline pin on the chip. The USAA cards issued after April 2014 have signature as #1 priority for purchases which USAA has said was done for "business considerations" whatever they are. I can't say for sure it will not work as an offline pin as a secondary cvm at unpersonneled kiosks; ;my guess is it will. Maybe that'll make you feel somewhat better.