A continual aggravation while traveling in foreign countries is the way financial institutions nickel and dime you to death with unconscionable fees. Most credit cards charge a rip-off 3% "foreign currency conversion fee," which is a fee for doing nothing since the conversion is automated. If you use an ATM you get hit for ATM fees (in addition to the rip-off 3% if you use a credit card in them.) And of course with credit cards and ATM advances there can be the horrendous finance charges. Banks charge a flat fee and/or percentage to change money which is often quite high. Currency exchanges often advertise that they change money at bank rates, but you'll find in the fine print (if at all) that they charge a whopping big fee or percentage commission. Some exchanges, including Amex, don't charge a fee or commission, but you'll get such a lousy exchange rate that you aren't any better off than if they had.

A recent trip to Greece suggested to me a way of avoiding all these charges, thus both saving money and offering the pleasant opportunity to flip the bird to all these rip-off artist financial institutions.

I discovered by chance that Alpha Bank, a Greek bank, will exchange US $ Amex checks into Euros without a fee or percentage commission at all of its branches. That is, not only is there no "check-cashing charge," but they actually waive any fee or percentage bank commission for exchanging the currency. And you get the same rate as you would at any other bank -- in fact, the rates I got were a little better than at some other banks. (AMEX offices will cash and exchange AMEX checks without charge, but you get a very poor rate.)

Now, typically you have to pay a 1% charge on AMEX checks when you buy them. Even at that you're ahead of the game by changing them free. But it's easy to avoid even the 1%. Many banks offer no-charge AMEX checks to customers with certain types of accounts. I think AAA does too, and there are no doubt other organizations that do. Many people reading this probably already have access to charge-free Amex checks without realizing it.

So that's the strategy: equip yourself with no-charge AMEX checks in US $ and in Greece change them at Alpha bank.

One downside to this is that there aren't a lot of Alpha Banks, so you may have to look around for a branch. And of course there may be convenience and security reasons to use credit cards or ATMs for some things. But still, if you use this technique as much as possible, the savings can be significant.

Which brings me to the question. Does anyone know of banks in other countries which exchange US $ Amex checks for free? I can't find a list anywhere, but I'd love to be able to use this method of changing money in other countries around the world -- it would save money, and would let me stick it to the rip-off artists who have been sticking it to travelers like me. If there isn't a list of such banks on the internet, maybe we can create one here.