Checklist for study abroad

Parent Cafe
21

<p>Very few people use travellers cheques outside the USA. In order to change them, you have to queue up at a bank counter. But not all banks will change them. So that is a whole day wasted wandering around trying to get money. </p>

<p>Lots of small shops in the UK won’t accept any card for purchases under £5, because they get charged for it. I don’t know why anyone would travel to a foreign country with absolutely no cash on them to be honest. You don’t know what might happen on arrival. What if you cannot find an ATM? Lose your credit card? Take £50-100 in cash I think, and them a credit and/or debit card after that. Withdrawing from an ATM once in the UK will get you the best exchange rate. If you have an account with Bank of America you can withdraw from Barclays free of charge. </p>

<p>Everywhere accepts VISA and Mastercard. AMEX is rare. One of my friends has something called a Discover card and no-one in the UK accepts that. </p>

<p>Do NOT take any £50 bank notes (bills I mean). They come in £5, £10, £20 and £50 (and there is a £1 in Scotland. In Scotland and Northern Ireland the pictures on the bank notes are different, but it’s actually the same currency and doesn’t need to be exchanged. So it’s best just to ignore this issue and spend them as normal. Some people in England have never even noticed this fact). In reality no-one has ever seen a £50 and most shops refuse to take them because they think they’re fake. I used to work in a department store and saw about two of these (which were questioned straight away) in 2 years. </p>

<p>You only get free NHS care in the UK if you are here 6 months or longer and have a long term student visa, so not for a summer program (though since if you visit the NHS they won’t ask for money and apparently have no way of charging you, it is unlikely that if this happened you would really have to pay for anything. Maybe in 20 years they would get round to billing you. Paying for health care is a completely alien concept in the UK).</p>

<p>4 digit PIN number is definitely a must. Also remember the number, rather than using a word, because many ATMs (cash points in the UK) do not have letters on the key pad. </p>

<p>You can buy something called an International Student card (ISIC card) and in theory to get student discount as a foreign student you have to show such a card. However, they are generally really easy going about things like this in the UK and if you can show some school card with your photo on, 99% of the time you will get a discount (if they even ask to see a card at all). In other European countries though I have found they are much stricter.</p>

22

<p>One son was in large city in remote part of China and generally unable to use credit cards. Ditto for ATM machines – there were some but in other, touristy part of the city.
This same son had ATM machine eat his card three years ago in Greece (a friend helped him out when he transferred money on line to friend’s Pay Pal) and a few months ago in Amsterdam (when he was with other son fortunately). Don’t know why either problem occurred.</p>

<p>Another son just studied abroad in Amsterdam for fall semester. There you cannot use American credit cards (exception: some touristy places like hotels, restaurants, on line plane reservations). We had to pay cash for train tickets – very surprising. Dutch credit cards are linked to bank accounts and have embedded chips in them.</p>

23

<p>Everywhere in the world apart from the USA has chipped cards, UK included. You CAN use American cards, but you have to ask the cashier. The main problem you will have with this in the UK is any kind of automated machine eg for train tickets. They won’t work without a chip and PIN number, so you have to go to the ticket office or information desk. But in the UK at least they always will (eventually) take your card. I believe it’s illegal not to because some people in the UK have old-style strip swipe cards due to disabilities. Of course, this makes your American card much much more vulnerable to fraud than anyone elses. Don’t let it out of your sight, especially in restaurants if they say they have to take it away to swipe it. Not true. They have hand-held machines which can be brought to your table.</p>