Want a Great Exchange Rate? Skip the Money Changers and Embrace the ATM

On one occasion in the course of my trip to Poland some three weeks ago, I withdrew 100 Polish zlotys from an ATM machine in Bialystok. Today, I received my bank statement showing that I had received 2.69 zlotys for every U.S. dollar I was charged. That compares with a bank exchange rate -- i.e., the rate that big purchasers get when they obtain zlotys, as shown in the financial newspapers at the time -- of 2.79 zlotys.

In effect, my use of an ATM machine to buy zlotys had limited my expense for that transaction to 3.5%. Had I obtained my zlotys instead from a money changer, at a kiosk in the airport or railroad station, I would have been charged as much as 15% for the same transaction. I know this from the outrageous exchange rate posted at all the money-changing kiosks I observed in Poland.

Nothing, in my opinion, can better illustrate the universal practice that all individual travelers should now perform when they go abroad. They should, to the extent possible, limit their money changing to bank ATM machines. They should make every effort possible to avoid those non-bank business people who operate counters, windows or booths for the purpose of supplying foreign currencies.