So a few months ago when the dollar hit near par, we decided it seemed like a great idea to open a US bank account and put all our savings into US $. We figured we could then just withdrawl from the US account, a few hundred dollars at a time, along the way. Taking $15,000 with us all at once would just be stupid, Western Union transfers are inconvenient and expensive, and travellers cheques are hardly accepted anywhere anomore, so it seemed like the best option. We wanted to take US $ since it is accepted almost anywhere, and by transferring it all over to US when near par we would avoid risking the dollar changing against our favour along the way.
Well, a few weeks ago we went down to our bank to apply for a bank card to access our US account, only to discover that in Canada it is not possible to access US $ in a US account via card. So basically we can't access our US $ outside of Canada!! So what exactly is the point of being able to open a US bank account if you can't use it in the US!???
So we had a very stressful day of driving all over the place trying to find a solution to this problem. The bank told us we would have to transfer all the money back to Canadian (losing lots of money of course because the banks hike up their exchange rates) and then as we withdrew it along the way it would be exchanged back into US $ or local currency at that day's exchange rate. This option would cause us to loose about $1,000 in total, so we were pretty upset. Then we went and talked to Western Union, and they offer an online exchange where we could transfer the money back into Canadian at a much better rate, but still lose about $500 in total. Better...but not great.
Finally, we found out about this US $ MasterCard that BMO offers, which we can prepay with $15,000 and we can withdrawl cash advances of US $ or local currency, we will only be charged $3.00 per withdrawl, and it will apparently work pretty much everywhere. We are also going to bring a Visa prepaid with some Canadian money, and if for some reason in any city our MasterCard won't work we can use the Visa to take out US $ or local currency at that day's exchange rate. The only concern is having the credit cards stolen. We would have felt much more comfortable if we were using a debit card, but given our situation this is our best option.
Anyways, long story short, if you are travelling outside of Canada DO NOT open a US $ bank account!!!! Keep your money in Canadian. Would have been SO MUCH easier!
