Icmeler Online Holiday Forum & Reviews - Turkey

Hi what does everyone think the best way to take their spending money? I usually take Travellers checks bit think they’re a bit of a rip off by the time you pay the commission on them.
Was thinking of just taking my debit card (have two to take with me) and withdrawing money at the ATM’s in Icmeler but have now read about cards being cloned.
So what do you all think the best method of taking your hard earned cash on holiday to Turkey?
Sorry if this has been discussed before.

Hi

would take small amount of cash and the rest in sterling travel cheques you can change them in most places and if you use the small supermarkets they will not charge you commission and should give you the same rate as cash

The other thing is if the cheques are lost or stollen you can always get replacment just make sure you keep a copy of the cheque numbers

Steve

only words of caution I'd use re cashing travellers cheques all over the place is that your passport number will be in lots of people's hands - in these days of id hijacking, I'd rather take ££s in cash

Hi

We always take cash with us to turkey, what we normally do is change half of our money into lira here in england and the rest in turkey as 9 times out of 10 you can get a better rate for it over there, we never go wrong with taking cash with us.

Happy holidays

Lou n Vicky

I take a mixture, This year I have changed 30% of money in Lira when it was a good rate a few weeks ago, I take 20% in sterling and the rest in Traveller Cheques as a precaution.

Do not change TC in the exhange shops, the rate is not very good and they charge commission. I change mine either in the supermarket below ICR or the supermarket across the road from the Romance Restaurant, I have never found better rates.

Make sure you hire a safe at the hotel.


Dave

We've just got back. I took £20 in lira which i changed before we left the UK just to tide us over. I then took about £400 in stirling which is how much the apartment was going to cost us (we didn't pay for that or transfers until we got there) I then just had my bank card for my nationwide account and i drew out enough money to last me for the day every day. I was drawing it out in Lira and when i got home i had my statement through and where as the supermarkets and banks were offering us between 2.45-2.50 i was getting 2.49-2.52. It was dead easy, my card wasn't cloned (i used the cash point next to the prince apartments) and i never had lots of money on me at any one time.

My Brother in law who was with us took travellers cheques and had no problem exchanging them. He only had to show his passport once and that was in the supermarket below ICR offices after that they didn't ask to see it again. He didn't have to pay commission either.

dksbbs - you say to make sure you hire a safe. The one time that we hired a safe in turkey we were robbed and the safe was cleaned out, we lost all our cash (we'd been there for 3 days out of a 14 day holiday so lots of money) passports and flight tickets as well as bank cards. Since then i have kept all important stuff on me and have had no problems at all.

rachel06 wrote:dksbbs - you say to make sure you hire a safe. The one time that we hired a safe in turkey we were robbed and the safe was cleaned out, we lost all our cash (we'd been there for 3 days out of a 14 day holiday so lots of money) passports and flight tickets as well as bank cards. Since then i have kept all important stuff on me and have had no problems at all.

Wow, sorry to hear that, I use the safe as it is a requirement for my insurance policy, I also don't want to be carrying all my money around. I did ask at the apartments if there was a second key for the safe, I was informed by the owner that there was but they were kept at her home and no one else had access to them in the apartmentsl. I have heard of issues with safes behind a reception area which I would be extremley wary of using.


Dave