Canadian Snowbirds Using ATMs In USA

[Mighty_J]

Sorry for the delay in responding. We use CIBC Bank USA. So far, we’ve had no transaction fees at all. There is some interconnectivity in that you can see your balances or transfer money to the account from the Canadian app, but you need to use the US app to do anything else.

Worked well for us so far.

[Jim.B1]

SoonToBeFT
I use Global Currency in Guelph, ON
I set up a pre-authorized account so I can simply phone in and they will do transfers from my CAD bank account into my USD bank accounts.
This is especially useful when travelling and I want to bump up the US funds.

[Open Roaders]

We’ve always taken a big chunk of cash south every year because we bank with Scotiabank and there are no BOA ATMs where we go. However this past year I got a Wise card.

It’s a prepaid visa debit card. You link it to your Canadian bank account and just move money over when you need it. It acts as a Visa card and an ATM card. No ATM fees but best of all it’s a Forex Company so you get the market rate for foreign exchange not the lousy bank rate!

I paid $68 less for the same $400 cash withdrawal at the same machine as my friend did with her Scotiabank debit card!
I’m really happy with it.
There’s also a good security aspect to it as you don’t need to keep any balance on it so if it gets compromised you won’t lose anything

[SoonToBeFT]

Well we just got back from a several week trip down to the USA to celebrate our Ruby anniversary, and I went into Chase Bank. Whilst inside I asked what limit to withdraw cash and how much they'd charge = she said no limit other than what your bank allows (we have a C$5,000 limit per day per card), and no fee to withdraw other than what you bank charges. I was like WOW!

Well to cut a long story short and I need to talk to my TD banking lady now we are back, but the transaction wouldn't go through for even just US$1,000 (under C$1400). Yet I could withdraw US00 with a US$5 fee at the ATM. How odd??

Again, thanks for all your sharing of your experiences we are avidly looking into Canadian/US accounts and will also check more into WISE.

Cheers, STBFT

PS: Off Topic but in case this interests/helps anyone headed south for cell service that was another concern on costs. We just changed from about 25 years with Bell to Rogers Family Plan. Daughter's Fiance is with them, and he was paying $120/mth Canadian only plan anyways but now we have 3 phones on 100GB unlimited (throttled potential after), Unlimited calling/texting and other stuff back and forth whether generated from within Canada or down in the USA. It's called an unlimited Canada/USA plan and it was awesome our recent trip. We ironically didn't exceed our 100GB data (did lots of hot spot watching TV series, YouTube etc), made untold calls back to Canada and lots of texting and videos. Cost: Primary Guy $110, Daughter and I = $55/mth. We are all thrilled with it and the seamless transition crossing back and forth over the border. Not worrying anymore about C$13/day Roam Like Home type plans!!! Just sharing in case helps anyone else out here. We were originally thinking we'd need to go with more affordability Visible in the USA but this means no hassle when we cross. So far so good, hope it lasts for years.