They had a minor charge but it wasn't a big deal.  I already have my TC's bought and ready.  Now I just have to survive the flights...

As has been said throughout this thread, you can't typically change money at a US bank on such short notice.

JimmySeal wrote:

As has been said throughout this thread, you can't typically change money at a US bank on such short notice.

You can easily get $1000 in the US though from any bank, and convert the dollars to yen once you arrive in Japan. I always take £100 or so in cash with me now when I go overseas, since my bank in the UK just randomly blocks my card for fraud prevention reasons. Doesn't matter if I warn them beforehand or how long I've been away already, it's pretty random and incredibly annoying.

There is a good reason why TCs are hard to get and hard to cash these days-- nobody uses them anymore.

Seriously, there's an American Express office 3 blocks from my house. Do they sell traveler's checks? Nope.

I had to drive 15 miles to the nearest AAA office to get them, and it took them 30 minutes to get it straightened out. That really should have been a big *warning, warning!* signal to me.

Nobody wants to take them, nobody wants to deal with them, and good luck finding a bank that will cash them.

When I got to London, the only bank I found that would take them royally screwed me over on the exchange rate. (Lloyd's... bastards.) The rate that day was $1.59 USD per GBP, I got charged $1.74.

A week later, I used my ATM card, and got the market rate of $1.60 USD per GBP.

So yeah... just call your bank, or have the number handy, and use an ATM/Debit card like everyone else does. If the ATM spits out your card, then just call your bank and yell at them like everyone else does. I had to do that the first time I went to Japan, too, but they got it straightened out quickly after that.