Money Matters for Your TripOne of your biggest worries may be how to convert your American dollars to yen and then having enough money with you to travel comfortably and safely. If you have carefully used your credit cards in the past and can travel with American Express, VISA or Mastercard debit and credit cards, you will not have many problems spending your money as yen. Unfortunately, just as the exchange rate has dropped for the dollar, meaning it takes a few more dollars to purchase meals and hotel rooms, credit card companies have added a fee for paying Japanese merchants in the local currency while giving you your bill in US dollars. With all of this in mind, the very best way to pay for your trip is by putting money in your checking account and withdrawing money through an ATM; you may even want to consider a home equity loan as an alternative to credit cards. The first thing you should do as you budget for your trip is to find out what the dollar is worth in Yens. As you do your vacation planning, one of the best places to find current exchange rates is at XE.com. It has accurate information on conversion to any currency in the world and clearly displays the relationship of the Yen to Australian, Canadian, and US Dollars, British Pounds and Euros and any other currency you might be interested in observing. Keep in mind as you track rates, that events can trigger rapid changes in prices, so the data is a good indicator but not a guarantee of what exchange rates will be. When you know the rate, you need to decide if you want to convert some dollars to yen before you leave for Japan. On our first trip to Japan, we purchased a small amount of Yens at the Los Angeles airport. Check the major airport you will be flying out of or you can contact us for verification to see if the airport has a place to convert your dollars to Yen. Generally, you want to land in Japan with enough to cover your train fare to your hotel/hostel, meals for a day or two and, if your hotel does not accept credit and debit cards, your hotel bill. If you want to do your first exchange to Yens in the US, you may be able to do it at your local bank. Ask them to give you an estimate of the cost before you put in an order and then compare it with online currency conversion businesses. One of the biggest companies is www.travelex.com. Another company that will deliver your yens to your home or business before your leave is www.ordercurrency.com. A search on Google will give you the names of many other sites, but you should note that many of them operate to assist investors who are trying to profit off the changes in exchange rate rather than making small exchanges for travelers.
The Japanese system for getting money is different from what you are comfortable with in North America or Europe. There are banks that can handle your financial transactions but you will find that you can handle many of your transactions at the nearest post office. Small private ATM services are beginning to appear in Japan but generally you will find the lowest cost ATMs at the banks or post offices. You should also note that many ATMs will not accept foreign credit cards. We walked past a bank in downtown Himeji that had a long wall of ATMs but none of them would accept our credit cards; then encountered another bank that would not give us cash on our ATM cards. We finally headed to a post office. Don't count on finding an ATM machine that accepts foreign cards in the subway or railway stations. We left our hotel knowing there was a post office near the main Tokyo train station. When we arrived at the train station, we asked a clerk where we could find an ATM, thinking the station might have one; he let us into the station, pointed through the station and so we continued onward rather than over to the post office. As we headed deeper into belly of the Japan's biggest train station we saw no clue that there was an ATM so we asked for better directions. One clerk sent us to an ATM machine that only took local cards; another sent us to the Japan Rail Office. Finally, I went to one of the major department stores in the station knowing that some department stores have foreign ATMs. They didn't but gave me very good directions to a private ATM that took gave us cash. |
While it has become much easier to travel with credit and debit cards in Japan over the last few years, you will still want to carry larger amounts of cash in Japan that you might carry on a trip in the US or Europe. The main places where you will need cash is to purchase tickets on subways and busses, to buy snacks or drinks at vending machines and to pay admission fees to some attractions. Many smaller merchants haven't started taking cards and fast food shops often operate on a cash basis.
But with new charges on credit cards for foreign transactions, which currently are 2 to 3% of every cash advance or purchase, you may want to change the way you get cash and pay bills. We comfortably used our credit cards only for purchases because American Express was giving a 3% rebate on travel purchases that cancelled the foreign transaction fees. Even if we had to pay the 3% we would have considererd the 3% cash advance fee somewhat reasonable because it made traveling easy and limited our risk of losing money.
Between the foreign transaction fee and cash advance fee, getting yen as cash through your credit cards is a very expensive way to pay for your trip. I reviewed the provisions on one of my cards and realized it would cost $10 minimum to take out cash or 3%, then the foreign transaction fee of 3% would be added and interest of 2% per month would start running. Be sure you know what the minimum cash advance fee is....if you only took out $100 in cash on a card like this, you would pay $15 for the right to use $100 for a month, that is effectively 180% APR.
The best way to use a credit card which has transaction and cash advance fees is to pay as many bills as possible directly to the merchant with the credit card and, when cash is necessary, make withdrawals, with a debit card. Currently, banks are not charging the foreign conversion fees on their debit or ATM cards; they are only charging a fee for using a foreign ATM and those fees are significantly lower..
In order to access cash through an ATM, you have a few basic choices.
The Discover Card has not spread across the Pacific so leave that card at home.
American Express, Mastercard and VISA are popular throughout Japan and are generally accepted at most hotels and restaurants. Also, most major retailers accept these cards.
Theft and other property crimes are not very common in Japan, so that you don't need to take great steps to protect yourself from petty thieves or pickpockets. That said, it is still possible to lose your wallet or purse, leave your credit card behind in a restaurant, or become a victim of that rare Japanese crime. If you are traveling alone, make a list of your credit and debit card numbers and the telephone number to contact the company from Japan; alternatively, activate the online credit card services of your card so that you can contact them via the internet if there are problems. Keep your list in a secure place other than your wallet or purse; if possible, also provide that information to a trusted friend or relative who can get the information for you if you somehow misplace your own copy. If you are traveling with your spouse, only carry one card for each account and hold the information for the cards your spouse is carrying. The reason for splitting cards is that if you split the cards and one of you loses your wallet or purse, the other still has some credit cards to use. Because we were trying to take cash from our savings account, we set up two different accounts from which we could draw funds and I carried the debit card for one account while my husband carried the debit card for the other. Because most of our hotels provided free internet access, we could check on our bank accounts at our hotels. (Just as a security precaution, change the account passwords when you get home.) Don't put any other information on the list besides the card number, phone number for the company and web information; DO NOT PUT PIN NUMBERS ON IT.
You may be tempted to get travelers' checks to use in Japan but they are not very popular with merchants who are geared up to accept credit cards. Issues of security (counterfeit checks are not uncommon) have made it difficult to find merchants who will accept them, so that you it tends to be more convenient to travel with credit cards. But if you don't have credit or debit cards or are reluctant to use your credit cards, Travelers' checks are much safer than carrying cash. Even though merchants may not prefer them, you can get cash for your American Express travelers' checks at American Express offices and some banks. If you are traveling in major cities, AmEx offices are easy to find. Smaller towns are less likely to have American Express offices so if you are relying on travelers' checks for your trip, be sure to get cash in big cities or double-check that there will be a place to cash your travelers' checks in the next town you visit.
If you do choose to use travelers' checks, be sure that you have a list of the check numbers stored away from the checks themselves--in your partner's security pouch or in a secret compartment in your luggage.
Japan is one of the safest places in the world. From the moment you get off the plane you will get a sense that the country puts a high premium on security, including physical security. While you still want to use common sense, you don't have to keep an eye out for potential threats on every bus or subway as you should when you are traveling in Europe.
As I mentioned earlier, however, one of the best precautions is to divide credit and ATM cards for joint accounts. If you are travelling with your partner or spouse, don't carry both copies of the credit cards issued on an account. In the event that one spouse loses his/her wallet or security pouch and each partner is carrying all of their joint credit cards, both cards are cancelled and you may have no back up cards. The best way to deal with joint credit card accounts is to determine how many cards you want to carry on the trip and then select half of the cards in one partner's name and take the other half in the other partner's name. Leave the duplicates at home (or in your safety deposit box) in a safe place.
The two things that will be most important in selecting these items is comfort and how easy the item is to carry. If you are lugging a bag through the subway, you might prefer a fanny pack to a purse. I carried a small purse in my luggage to use when went out for dinner but generally used a fanny pack which gave me room for batteries and other things I needed for my camera.
It is common to use a passport wallet to hold passports and back-up credit cards. Unfortunately, they don't make a positive fashion statement and they can be very uncomfortable in humid weather. I opted for blouses that had security pockets large enough to hold both my own and my husband's passports. I definitely appreciated the comfort that came wth shedding the passport wallet.