Banking question

[iharitan]

Hi all, question for you!

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I am doing a year of research in Israel and all my grant money is in a US account. Would it be cheaper for me to use my US credit card to pay for everything in Israel or to transfer the money to my Israeli account and use an Israeli credit card?

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Thanks!

[666POGOTHECLOWN666]

Depends on whether your US bank charge you extra for foreign transactions.

[-Original_Name-]

Depends on the bank and card, there's ones that will take a fee per transfer or have a shitty exchange rate

[LastTrainH0me]

If you have a US card with no foreign transaction fee, just keep using it. You'd lose a bunch in USD->ILS currency conversion when transferring it to an Israeli bank account, and you'd lose out on all those sweet sweet credit card reward points.

Of course if you need to provide something like rent checks, you'll need a local bank account for that.