ATM strategy at PEK?
 

Yes, I know, the minutia that keeps an obsessive compulsive travel planner awake at night! But here goes...

Does anyone know the max amount that one can withdraw from whatever ATMs are available when arriving internationally at PEK? If there are several machines, is one bank better than another?

And given that, as I'm not familiar with the currency, is there a suggested "off amount" I should request so that I'll get at least some smaller denominations?

Thanks :)

There are many different varieties of ATMs at PEK. Since my primarly US bank account is BofA and Construction Bank is the only one that doesn't charge me $5, I usually stick with those. When I feel like I want to carry a lot of cash (not very often), I pull out y2000 twice, which is a hair south of $600. But, sometimes I go with HSBC, which permits y3000 per transaction.

That having been said, I'm curious as to why you might want to hit the town with an extremely fat wallet because ATMs are ubiquitous and wallets vanish on occasion (I know carrying lots of cash is common practice in Japan because Japan is expensive and credit card acceptance is remarkably low, but this really isn't the case in Beijing).

I can see your point about not carrying lots of money, that's how I am at home. But I'm thinking that I want to buy my onward flight ticket(s) while I'm at the airport, and still have cash left for spending. Also, I like to max my withdrawals in order to minimize my trips to the ATM - worried that somewhere down the line a machine will decide to eat my card, or I get stuck using my backup that charges a fee per transaction. Oh, I'm carrying my credit cards just for emergencies, prefer to pay cash!

Thanks for the response! :)

IMO, you'd be better off buying those tickets after you get settled into your hotel because the airport is not a pleasent place in which to conduct such business. Furthermore, while there are a handful of travel agents at the airport, for the most part, individual airlines have their own ticket windows (which only sell tickets the given airline's flights); transacting at these windows will put you at an informational disadvantage in cases where more than one airline serves a given route (i.e. most).

Thanks, I do believe I may take your advice about waiting till later to buy tickets. I had in fact been concerned that after a trillion hour flight to PEK, I may not be in the mood to stick around at the airport and deal with such matters!

p.s. My one exception may be my quest for a Deer Air flight, which I'll post in a new thread...