Thursday, October 16, 2008

Cash Advances in La Paz

This is just a quick travel tip based on my own experience. If you need to get a cash advance from a VISA card in La Paz, Bolivia, BCP won't do it. However, Bank Bisa will.

Also, certain problems with your bank account will cause your debit card to be marked by VISA as "lost." At this point, if you try to obtain cash from an ATM, the machine will not give the card back and it will be lost forever—i.e., unusable, as though it had been reported stolen.

4 comments:

Cheryl Mingo said...

Are you sharing this from experience...I mean have you lost your visa card again???

Jay Philip Williams said...

The ATM took (and kept) my debit card, so now I'm back to using my regular VISA card and getting cash advances from banks. It's a royal pain in he neck, but at least I've still got that backup!!!

Jay Philip Williams said...

By the way, Cheryl, I've never lost a VISA card! Just had them stolen—one by a thief and another by an ATM!

Anonymous said...

Haha Hay sounds great. Gotta love La Paz. I never had that problem. Before i left I let the bank know which countries I possible might be in and they made note of it. It might of helped, might not. The problem with Bolivia is I found I could only take out a small amount of cash at a time. Good thing for was cheap and delicious.