Transfering money to Japan

It's possible. I dont' use HSBC... just saying I know it doesn't work like this w/ their direct competitors. Citi is kind of a joke in this regard, and Shinsei isn't bad. I get a great rate w/ Shinsei and can convert 24 hours a day. They are technically only a Japanese bank as well... although they are largely (wholley?) owned by whitey.

Actually Citi Japan has a "Gaika" account which is used specifically for this. It is totally separate from your yen, you get a separate card, and everything. You can't even use it in Japan. I forgot my cards pin (on vacation nonetheless) so never got to try it for myself. That's another option, but I would be wary of fees... and even if Citi US or Citi UK even offers it.

All that set aside, I would personally be a bit worried about accessibility to cash. US ATM limits are a joke. Like $500. No clue what they are in the UK, but if you're not comfortable carrying around a couple hundred thousand yen, you might find yourself in a pickle.

Why not do a bit of both. Take 5000 GBP in traveller's checks or cash, leave the rest in Old Blighty. Although at this point there's no fucking way I would be buying a bunch of yen I *might* use.

 

I would always take traveller's cheques to the value I think I'd use (and I'm sure he'd use them!). That said, I drew traveller's cheques from HSBC here in US Dollars, written by American Express but with HSBC on them. Took them into HSBC in NYC. They asked if I had an HSBC account, and proof of this, e.g. my card! Good job I had it with me! Aren't you supposed to be able to exchange traveller's cheques anywhere?!?

The limit here is usually £250 a day, which is somewhere between 30,000 and 35,000 Yen. I admit that doing that every few days would soon mount up the fees, but at least it is a solution - and worth considering if the fees are good. Incidentally, the fees should be the same as the traveller's cheques, more or less. So yeah, take as many traveller's cheques as you can, if you can convert them easily!

 

Trying to cash Travellers Cheques outside of a metropolitan city is nearly impossible, although banks are meant to cash them, most of them will never have seen a TC and will tell you they won't cash them until they are blue in the face.

I could use a ATM but with a 300 pound withdraw limit trying to pay rent will take a number of withdrawls.

Also the number of reverse charge calls I had to make to my bank fraud line was getting past a joke as I always tried to withdraw the maximum I could, so I had a rough idea of the exchange rate and tried to withdraw money, sadly if I tried to go over my limit a few times then the card was blocked, what pisses me off is that neither the bank nor the fraud line can tell me how to find the exchange rate on that day, one telling me to use the Visa currency rate and the other saying it is taken on the current exchange rate of that hour... so when the exchange rate started to go down I was basically screwed trying to find a figure.

Most Japanese banks offer a decent exchange rate if I exchange more then 1000 UK pounds as it still works out better then using a cashpoint and their withdraw charges, plus I am not at the mercy of the yo-yoing exchange rate...

I do plan to open a Japanese bank account on the day I get a visa that isn't touristy.

 

So are you in the UK or Japan at the moment?

I'd definitely try and get to the embassy if I were you - they should be able to give you advice and actual figures when it comes to limits etc. ;-)

 

I've heard that credit cards will take the worst day (against you, not them) of your statement and go against that. I've never really double checked on my statement as I don't buy expensive stuff in currencies my cards don't support. My significant other does though, all in the name of miles.

Honestly, if you trust your gal, I'd put it in her account... not her main one as that gets messy, but another one. If she gets audited, she just has to explain that she's fucking a gaijin that needed to store money somewhere.