You could maybe get the “premium” for one month with Revolut and increase that limit.
Or just accept the bit higher costs of withdrawing past-free, it could still be cheaper than from bank’s cards.
500-1000 is not such a huge amount you should lose your sleep over.
Open an Euro account at your bank (if free)
Use Transferwise to transfer CHF / xchange to EUR (at the same time) & deposit in your EUR account.
Withdraw Euro (cash) from your Euro account in CH (usually free) and take Cash with for your hols.
For higher amounts - open an account at DKB (free) and use Transferwise to transfer CHF there/exchange to EUR at the same time. With your DKB debit card & credit card you have (electronic) free payments all over Euro-zone. Not as “sexy” as Revolut, but no monthly limits, no ever-changing nonsense with legacy companies trying to block Revolut’s rise.
Since you have an IB account, why not convert through IB? This is what I do. I have set up a monthly withdrawal to one of my EUR accounts in the EU. Remember, first withdrawal each month is free at IB.
For smaller amounts (less than 1000 CHF), I use Revolut occasionally.
Great tip, I didn’t know about the first withdrawal for free per month, in fact I never withdrew from my IB account yet I will keep that in mind.
I now got my Revolut card and just a heads up for all others: the physical card itself is not for free, it costs CHF 5.99. You don’t necessarily need it as you can use the virtual one or apple pay but I thought depending where I am on holiday I might need a real card…
I confirm it is what they call a “delivery” fee. Of course, it is not much compared to others banks which charge you 40-120 CHF for some piece of plastic.
For cash exchanges, find an acquaintance who needs CHF and will exchange CHF for EUR directly P2P at interbank rates or better. This is really your best bet for favorable cash currency exchanges because you cut out the middle man.
Otherwise I would recommend the Coop Depositenkasse for CHF to EUR exchanges, if there is one near you. It was among the top performers in a Swiss bank currency exchange rate comparison we did at moneyland.ch in 2018, and still has some of the best rates from what I’ve seen. You don’t have to open an account as you would with a bank or neobank, so it’s quick and easy. You can find these in most Coop department stores (Coop City).
Neon, Revolut and TransferWise are all decent for smaller euro withdrawals in the eurozone, but in my experience it’s very difficult to find ATMs which don’t charge ATM fees.
And prior to my holidays I estimate by budget in EUR and convert it using the best alternative on https://www.monito.com/. In the past months, Transferwise was often the best solution.
Same here. Italy and Spain, no issues. I have done so directly from the EUR account with the EUR card, so no fees on the Postfinance side whatsoever. Spanish banks are a different story… (but that would apply also to Revolut and the likes).
I was in Rapallo and I’ve tried different ATMs. Maybe I had bad luck or my card was/is broken. Since then I switched to Revolut and never used PF Euro card.
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