My son is going to Austria over the Easter holidays, and we were wondering which is the best way to handle his spending money. I was thinking traveller's cheques, but one of the other parents in the group said she is sending her boy with a debit card. I like this idea, and if ATMs and businesses that would accept his card are common there, that would be the way to do it, I think. We'll send some cash with him too, Euros and maybe some US dollars.
I'd appreciate any advice from those familiar with this part of Europe.

My experience with debit cards overseas is that they only work in ATMs (and not necessarily all of them) and not as debit cards in stores.

I think that though my daughter speaks the language of course, and is very autonomous and has family there, I still wanted her to spread out the ways of using money.
She had her debit card from her bank and I could put money on that account, and when you withdraw it the commission isn't as bad, then, I did go ahead and get her a bunch of traveler's cheques, but not as much as I'd planned to prior to that.
I think getting him Euros is a good idea too but boy is it hard to get them here in the States.
She did get her purse stolen at a dance because her friends changed tables and someone was watching. They only got her American driver's licence and some cash and her library card. So, they got the cash instead of anything else.



Austria is a beautiful place and very hospitable.
Tell him not to talk about Schwarzie in Graz though...they're not too keen on that.

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Tell him not to talk about Schwarzie in Graz though...they're not too keen on that.

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What's that?

They have already been told, very firmly, that Nazi jokes are NOT a good idea.

I don't know about debit cards, but we had problems in Europe with our usual ATM (or EFTPOS) card.

In the past, we had travelled throughout Asia, using ATMs to draw out money on our one and only account. So off we went to Europe, all set to do the same, and our card would not work in Europe.

Turned out that it was because our account was classified as a cheque account instead of a savings account.

There we were in Europe with no money and unable to access any. Luckily we were staying with relatives and they loaned us money while we waited for my mother-in-law in Australia to organise money to be transferred into my cousin's account, which he then drew out and gave to us. Then when we got back to Australia, we had to pay back MIL. Just imagine the predicament we would have been in if we had been regular tourists with no friends or relatives to help us.

To rub salt into the wound, I had actually enquired about this very situation at my bank prior to the trip and was assured there would not be any problems. We were given the wrong advice by our bank staff.

I've travelled to Austria for years, including the era of the 'schilling' currency, and have never encountered difficulty exchanging money. Possibly if all you had was Iraqi dinars or North Korean won you might have difficulty, but US dollars shouldn't be a problem. Regards to ATM's and debit cards, throughout the world most ATM's only accept certain cards, and you just have to find one which accepts yours. Provided your daughter's card is one issued by a major bank or credit organisation such as Cirrus, Visa or Mastercard, then I can't imagine there'd be any problem finding ATM's throughout Austria which accept it.
I don't have a VISA card, but have a Mastercard credit card and a Cirrus debit card, and have never had great difficulty obtaining currency anywhere in the world. Having two card types, plus a bit of currency (dollars and/euros) for the fiirst few days, might be the best solution to your concerns, but I really doubt if there'll be any problems in Austria. Even in the absence of of any ATM machine, many, if not most banks, will issue currency over the counter chargeable to a recognised debit card.
Possibly of greater concern is medical insurance, and though Austria has excellent facilities, they could be expensive and have to be paid for 'on the spot'. Just make sure there's adequate insurance cover, and sufficient credit limit on the debit/credit card(s) to pay for basic treatment. In emergency of course, treatment will be given first and payment only worried about afterwards.

Well, we've got the Cirrus logo, it also has a Maestro logo. I'd like to do it this way, as the chances of him losing just the one card are smaller than if he had traveller's cheques, and I don't like the idea of giving him a credit card. This way, there can only be as much money as we can afford to lose in the account, but we would have the option of putting more money in from here, if it were needed. I'm not too worried about problems, as he is travelling with a large group, and there will be several adults there who know us, and have credit cards.
Thanks for the reminder about the extra insurance, that is on my to-do list. Canadians tend to not think about health insurance, as we all have it here from the government.
The bank has told us they need about three days notice for Euros - I'm going to get it about two weeks in advance, just to be sure. They will be arriving at the beginning of the Easter weekend so we want to make sure he has a few days worth of cash, as I assume banks will not be open.

The kids are giddy with excitement, as you can imagine, and it seems the chances of any international travel from Alberta schools rests to some extent on how well this trip comes off. School trips here were seriously scaled back after Sept 2001 - by coincidence, there had been a couple of deaths on school trips around that time - an avalanche in the mountians, and a freak wave on the coast - Mexico I think, or S California. It was not too easy for them to get permission for this trip.

Don't forget, in the event of an emergency, it is possible to send money within minutes using something like Moneygram, Western Union etc.

How easy is it to use Western Union in Europe? The reason I ask is because on two occasions I have tried to use it (in Australia and in Holland), and it was not possible because we were not located close enough to an authorised agent. I have only ever used it once (in Australia) and it was more trouble than it was worth.

Moneygram might be easier.

I looked it up, and in Austria Western Union is available in post offices and Raiffeisen banks. There's a long list of them on the Western Union website, so it looks like in Austria it shouldn't be a problem. Not speaking from experience though!

So where in Austria is he going?

Innsbruck, Salzburg, and Vienna. It's just a ten day thing - there are a lot of special events this year to celebrate Mozart's 250th. Nearly 100 people in the group; it's the honour band - they will having a couple of performances during the trip - at schools, I believe.

Agony, sounds like a great experience for your son, I am sure he will have a great time! Be sure to give him my best for a safe trip.



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Agnes (JTJ)

He'll have to bring you back some of those special chocolates from there. Only if you like marzipan though.
I loved Innsbruck, because I loved the mountains.

The Mozart balls! My exchange student's father has a tax preparation business that is right next to Mozarts Geburthaus. My exchange student says she's sick of Mozart's birthday already.

In Vienna, the best place to go is the Tichy ice cream place - they have some great and creative ice cream! One that I almost ordered was spaghetti - vanilla ice cream put through something like those Play-Doh things to make it look like spaghetti and then a strawberry (or raspberry? I forget) sauce instead of the pasta sauce. They had a bunch of things like that!

IMPORTANT!! Whatever you decide to use be sure that the bank, card issuer, etc. is notified ahead of time that your son will be using it and where he is going and for how long. We have had the misfortune and hassle of having our cards denied due to what the bank thought was "illegal activity" because we tried it in a foreign country. I'm not saying that all banks will do this but it's a good safety precaution. It even happened to my daughter when she was travelling from California to Houston-------she tried to use her card a few times and they put a stop on her card. The inconvenience we had to go through was totally not worth it even though in the end your bank is only trying to protect you.

Hope your son has a great time---just had some friends come back from Vienna and they loved it!!!

Further note: Be sure that he really knows his pin #--some machines will "eat" the card if the wrong code is entered more than 3 times in a row.

That's a good idea; I'm going to be ordering some Euros on Monday (have heard they may take a couple of days to get there, so am giving our small town bank lots of notice) and will talk to them about that then.
This is a very small town, and the kids going overseas is a pretty big deal, so I suspect the bank knows all about it anyway, though!

Well, they're off! He got on a bus here at the school at 2 am, their flight is set to go about 8 am. It's about a two hours drive to the airport. They've got nearly 24 hours travelling ahead of them - not all airlines would take the big instruments like bari sax, so one group my son is in is taking all the big stuff, and going by way of Minneapolis, Amsterdam, Munich, and then a bus to Innsbruck...
Thanks everybody for your advice - this trip was starting to look ill advised; lots of screwups a couple of months ago, but the last week or so it has all fallen into place beautifully. I figure that's a good sign.

He'll have a great time and will come home with memories for a lifetime.

Great news...here are some Virtual Kleenexes for mom though...come on, fess up!

Gute Reise

If you get a call from him - tell him to make notes of everything they did each day. It will be invaluable when organizing photos and looking back on the trip years later!

Thanks in some part I am sure to the excellent advice I got here, he had a marvelous time. Not one snag of any description, things could not have gone more swimmingly.
One of their concerts was happened upon, quite by accident, by a group of German schoolchildren who were doing a rather dreary tour of museums and cathedrals. There was, apparently, dancing in the streets.

They had one encounter of the sort you can't believe happens - a woman saw the Canadian flag decals on their jackets, and asked what part of Canada they were from. When told "Alberta" she said, "Oh, I have relatives in Alberta, they live in - " and then named our little town and the even tinier town down the road, where nearly every teenager in town went on the tour. Some of her relatives were in fact part of the tour!