Originally Posted by Judy in Calgary

Something to be aware of in Canada and the USA is that in some places a foreign Visa card will work and a foreign MasterCard won't. In other places a foreign MasterCard will work and a foreign Visa card won't. In my opinion it would be ideal for a traveller to have both cards, or at least for the wife to have one card and the husband to have the other. Australian friends of ours have had this experience in both Canada and the USA, and a Canadian friend has experienced it in the USA.

Also, at least as far as Calgary and the Canadian Rockies are concerned, it tends to be the higher end businesses that accept the American Express credit card. Mom and Pop type operations tend to accept only Visa and MasterCard. I understand the reason is that American Express charges the merchant a larger commission fee, and small businesses cannot afford it.

Originally Posted by woodmanbg

Yes we took out Nationwide cards before our trip at Christmas for this reason. We use our Morgan Stanley card with cash back at home, and our Nationwide Flex with Cash back when abroad. Can recommend the nationwide. they were very helpful in getting our new cards to us before we left and also recommended advising them of when we would be out of the country for security reasons.

Originally Posted by celine_uk

When my family visit me, they always use amex travellers cheques and have no problems what so ever, they just take them to my local td canada trust branch and cash them for free.... no problems, i dont know why anyone would have problems cashing them at any bank in canada (free of charge)

Originally Posted by Dying to leave England

Hi all

Many thanks for all the replies - we have Nationwide Cards so I guess we'll be using those !! :D

Originally Posted by Dying to leave England

With the advent of high quality scanners/printers are travellers' cheques still as universally accepted in North America as they used to be ?

We have our first "real" research trip planned for March and can't decide whether to opt for travellers' cheques or put everything on the plastic - don't really want to take large amounts of cash over - any thoughts ?? :confused: :confused: