Travellers Cheques

Greetings all. I'll soon be getting my finances for the trip organized and I'm wondering about travellers cheques. I'll be getting American Express cheques in American funds but what denominations? All small, like $20.00 or should I get a mixture, some small some larger?

Any input appreciated.

I wouldn't bother getting small denominations, as when you change, you'll want enough money to last at least a week or so. I reckon $100 is probably the smallest you need - its a nightmare keeping track of the serial numbers for large quantities of notes. You can always buy dollars if you have too many rupes left at the end of your trip.
ATM cards work quite nicely in most bigger places in India (apart from the himalayas - unless this has changed?)

Take some dollar cash in smaller bills -- say, $100 in tens and fives. For the rest, get TCs in $100 denomination, otherwise you'll have a huge wad of them and won't be able to hide them in your money belt.

Keep the exchange certificates if you will want to change rupees back to dollars; without that, they won't let you do it.

I'd agree with sticking to the larger denominations likie 100s rater than 20s, although having 100 or so in 20s is worthwhile. There used to be some issue with american express cheques; a lot of places wouldnt accept them some years ago, as AE were sometimes refusing to pay out to traders claiming the cheques had "forged signatures". I've never used them so I dont know if this is still true. Some branches of State Bank of India wont accept Visa TCs either. If they sell Thomas Cook TCs in Canada they are a good bet - I've never had a problem with them. In smaller towns, notes currently get a worse exchange rate than TCs. With TCs the bank gets the rate to the time of encashment; with cash they get the rate at the time their currency is sent to a main branch. That sometimes takes a few weeks for them to get enough to send, so they give a more cautionary rate.

Currency exchange in India is not difficult (in cities). Thomas Cook
is a well known banker in this area. My suggestion would be to
take larger denominations. You can take smaller ones too, but it
takes a little longer in the counter.

On a few occasions, I took denoms each worth 500 US$, and on
one occasion, Ihad to take $20. I had no problems anytime.


my .02$