ATM Withdrawal Rates & Tips

ATMs are a low-cost and effective means of obtaining cash while overseas. However, there are some tips to observe:


1) Withdraw Hong Kong dollars.

- You can change them to Macau Patacas at Tai Fung Bank at a favorable rate of HKD$1 = MOP$1.03. For other currencies including Chinese Renminbi, Tai Fung bank will charge you a 1.5% to 2.5% spread (i.e. commission) in its exchange rates.

- If you change more than HKD$10,000 to Macau Patacas at Tai Fung, check if they charge you a "transaction fee". [They don't charge a fee as of 09 APR 2009.]

- If you want to gamble, use Hong Kong dollars as casions don't accept Macau Patacas.

- Don't carry Macau Patacas out of the country. Except for Zhuhai (across the border to China), you will have trouble finding other people to change them.

- If you withdraw from a Hong Kong bank in Macau Patacas, you will be charged the unfavorable rate of HKD$1 = MOP$1.02. The money changer in the airport gives you an even worse deal of HKD$1 = MOP$1.01.


2) HSBC ATMs only supply Hong Kong dollar bills in denominations of HKD$500 (US$64) and HKD$1000 (US$128) pieces. Hence, you cannot physically withdraw amounts smaller than that. Other ATMs probably have similar restrictions.


3) If you are withdrawing using a ATM, debit or credit card marked with "VISA", you can expect to pay about 1.6% before any bank charges. MasterCard probably charges a similar amount. [VISA rates]


4) If your bank charges a flat fee (like most Singapore banks) for withdrawals, you can save much if you plan your spending so that you withdraw a larger amount each time.

- If you are traveling from a country like Singapore where you can get exchange rates as low as 1% commission, then change your money to Hong Kong dollars before you arrive in Macau. Don't underestimate the savings, especially if you are a budget traveler.

- The low commission money changers can be found in Lucky Plaza (near Orchard MRT) and People's Park (near Chinatown MRT). Refer to [Singapore Street Directory]


5) Take note of (4) when you charge to your ATM or credit card. If you spend small amounts of money frequently, you may pay a lot in withdrawal fees.


Oh, by the way, please don't give away your money to the casino. There are better ways to do charity. :)

Macao Ferry Services to Hong Kong

The ferry trip between Macao and Hong Kong takes about 1 hour. Macau residents, seniors (above 60 years old) and children (below 12 years old) may obtain discounts.

The ferry companies have a standby queue. If you arrive early, join the queue. You will have an excellent chance of getting onto the next departing ferry ride.


----- TurboJet ------

http://www.turbojet.com.hk/eng/schedule/prd.html

Turbojet the most popular ferry company in Macau. Ferries usually depart every 15 minutes from the Hong Kong Macau Ferry Terminal on Hong Kong island. I have heard that some casinos give complimentary tickets to regular customers.

Operating Hours: 4am - 2:30am (next day)

Weekday: HKD$134 - MOP$142
Weekends & Holidays: HKD$146 - MOP$154
Night: HKD$168 - MOP$176
(Rates are given as: HK > Macau - Macau > HK)



----- First Ferry ------

http://www.nwff.com.hk/engtext/schedule/route.asp

You can travel directly to the Kowloon peninsular in Hong Kong. Ferries usually depart every 30 minutes from the Tsim Sha Tsui China Ferry Terminal.

Operating Hours: 7am - 12 midnight

Weekday: HKD$133 - MOP$140
Weekends & Holidays: HKD$148 - MOP$155
Night: HKD$168 - MOP$175
(Rates are given as: HK > Macau - Macau > HK)


----- CotaiJet ------

http://cotaijet.com.mo/en/destinations/

CotaiJet has just started operating. (Cotai is the name of island formed from the merger of Coloane and Taipa.) If you are traveling to Taipa or Coloane, you can consider taking this service.

Operating Hours: 7:30am - 5pm

Weekday: HKD$134 - MOP$142
Weekends & Holidays: HKD$146 - MOP$154
Night: Not available yet
(Rates are given as: HK > Macau - Macau > HK)


----- Money Saving Tips ------

1) There are travel agencies operating in Shun Tak Centre that will sell you special tickets. Depending on the shop and time, you can get these tickets for HKD$4 to HKD$13 cheaper than the regular price. Apparently, these are tickets that casinos give to favorite customers. As far as I know, no one will check if your name matches that on the tickets.

2) If you are buying tickets in Macau, you can always pay the ticket price as Macau Patacas even if it is quoted in Hong Kong dollars. This gives you a 3% savings.

3) If you walk a short distance from the Macau Ferry Terminal, you can find the place where the casinos provide Free Bus Services. They stop running at 12 midnight. If you are going to a destination near the casino and do not have much luggage, you can take a free ride. When you reach the casino, you can hop on to another casino bus service to the Chinese border for free too.

Transit via Macau on discount using Tiger Airways

Tiger Airways offers relatively cheap airfares from Singapore to many countries. However, its air ticket prices from Singapore to Macau is one of the cheapest, making it perfect for Singaporeans to transit to other places in the Pearl Delta Region, including Hong Kong, Zhuhai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou.

I have worked out some ticket prices for a sample flight in November 2007. Feel free to make your own comparisons.

Be aware that if you miss your flight, Tiger Airways will neither wait for you nor give another seat on the next flight. You can expect to pay at least HKD$2000 for the next ticket even for non-peak periods. If you are waiting at the airport, you can only book a ticket 2 hours before the next flight.


----- Transit via Macau to Hong Kong (Round Trip, estimated) -----

Air Ticket directly to Hong Kong (including taxes & charges): HKD$1818

Air Ticket to Macau (including taxes & charges): HKD$1000
AP1 Bus to Ferry Terminal: HKD$8
Ferry Ticket (assuming most expensive rate): HKD$344
Total: HKD$1352

Savings: 26%

[Update: Tiger Airways is offering direct flights to Hong Kong from 01 February 2010, which means that the cost savings from then onwards will be minimal.]


----- Transit via Macau to Shenzhen (Round Trip, estimated) -----

Air Ticket directly to Shenzhen (including taxes & charges): RMB$1171

Air Ticket to Macau (including taxes & charges): RMB$967
AP1 Bus to Chinese Border: RMB$7
Bus Service to Shenzhen: RMB$100
Total: RMB$1074

Savings: 8%


----- Transit via Macau to Guangzhou (Round Trip, estimated) -----

Air Ticket directly to Shenzhen (including taxes & charges): RMB$1221

Air Ticket to Macau (including taxes & charges): RMB$967
AP1 Bus to Chinese Border: RMB$7
Bus Service to Guangzhou: RMB$85
Total: RMB$1059

Savings: 15%

Hidden Commission for TT to Philippines

Some Filipino friends told me that it only cost MOP$25 per transaction to send money to the Philippines. There seems to be no other charges.

I was skeptical and decided to investigate. Some simple math calculations indicated that this company charges somewhere around 4% to 5% commission on currency conversion.


Hence, I am exposing such hidden commissions with my Money Changer Rate Table spreadsheet with both the Hong Kong dollar and Macau Pataca as the base currencies.

It features the following currencies: Australian Dollar, Euro, Indonesian Rupiah, Japanese Yen, Malaysian Ringgit, Filipino Peso, Singapore Dollar, Taiwanese Dollar, Thai Baht and the US Dollar.

You can download the special spreadsheet and print it out for reference

Disclaimer: This spreadsheet is created for educational purposes only. The author is not liable for any errors or omissions in this work. Use it at your own risk.


By the way, I use a popular software called Currency Converter 2 to get the latest forex data straight off the Internet.

Never lend money to people on the street

There are some well-dressed people who will approach you and ask to lend money from you. They are from mainland China and often speak only Mandarin (Putonghua). Don't lend them money as they will not pay you back.


The first time I encountered them was in late October. A lady came up to me at night apologizing to bother me. She said that she has lost her wallet and needed money to stay overnight.

She explains that she is not begging for money, just borrowing it. She promises to pay me back the next day, when her business partner arrives. She will definitely treat me for lunch for my great help.

I scribbled my contact information down and handed her all the notes in my bag, which is somewhere around MOP$360. The result is that I lost all my money.


The second time I encountered them was the day before yesterday. A man came up to me asking to befriend me.

This time he told me that he had lost all the money gambling in the casino and needed money for food. He is persistent saying that he is very hungry and has 2 companions in a similar situation. Their credit card bounced, he explained.

Again, he explains that he is not begging for money, just borrowing it. He will return the money the next day when his friend comes by to rescue him. As he speaks, one of his companions came and shake my hand.

He gave me his name card, which contains a Zhuhai number. I left my mobile number with him. I thought that I could give him the benefit of the doubt, but this time I only offer MOP$30. I have little money left myself and am not keen to give much away.

He tried asking for me but I told him that he can just eat lesser and share with his companions. He said OK, and then turned away. He never called. I later called his number only to find that his mobile phone was switched off.


On hindsight, if I wanted to help, I should have brought these people to a restaurant or give them bread or food vouchers.

These people have no qualms about cheating others, and may just use the money to gamble and lose at the casinos. Lying may be their professional occupation, and they have long silenced their guilty conscience.

I am not going to help them again. If they are really desperate, perhaps a cheap loaf of bread is what they will get. If they get persistent, I will threaten to call the police.

Free Coins in Macau

There is a place in Macau where you can get free coins. And that place is none other than the higher floor of the Ruins of Saint Paul.


It also comes with a great scenery of Macau, as long as it is not raining or foggy.

Get Rid of Brown MOP$10 banknotes

If you have one of those MOP$10 brown notes, bring it to any BNU branch and change it.

These notes have an image of the Memorial House of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen. The notes that a friend gave me were issued in 1991.

My friend thought that they were worthless, but fortunately, the deadline for changing these notes has been extended until 26 May 2009.

China Shopping Hazards

If you are going across the border to China to do some shopping, be careful, and be prepared.

1) Pickpockets

There are many pickpockets, including children. Never show your cash, and keep them separated in a few places. Be especially careful when you are seated on a bus. Never leave your luggage or bags unattended too. They tend to disappear.

No one will help alert you to the pickpockets or help you catch them. For some reason, the Chinese in China have became numbed to petty crime.




Sometimes you may see pickpockets in action on the bus, cutting out the pockets of unsuspecting passengers. Being the good Samaritan you are, you stop them. And being the good ruffians they are, they will wait and bash you up later with their friends.


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2) Fraud & Deceit

There are many products and practices in China which are downright unethical.

Rat meat may be sold for pigeon meat. Watermelons may be injected with artificial color and sugar water to enhance their taste. There were many food scandals in the past, such as fake, no-nutrient milk powder and poisonous rice. If possible, bring your own food along.


Learn how Chinese Renminbi looks like. If you look like a foreigner, you may be handed Taiwan money, which has about 1/4 the value of Renminbi. A simple rule is if you see Chairman Mao on the note, it is definitely Renminbi. There are also notes which are in cents (jiao), not dollars (yuan). They are legal currency too.

There are a lot of fake $50 and $100 Renminbi, and smaller amounts of other fake denominations. I always bring along a ultraviolet detector just in case. I am a victim of a fake RMB$50 note (probably from a money changer) myself. Here is a tutorial on how to recognize fake Chinese money.


You can buy a 8GB thumbdrive for RMB$120, an insane bargain in 2007. It will format and chkdsk nicely in the computer, but it won't work when you try to put real files on it. Your files will be randomly corrupted instead. The thumbdrive will report that it is full after you copied a few hundred megabytes to it. The same goes for the 8GB imitation iPod players.

Don't buy anything that looks too good to be true. Stick to products which have a warranty and more reasonable prices. Avoid buying from stalls and buy only from shops, as stall owners can just disappear whenever they like.


I was also cheated by a prepaid phone dealer. She claimed that the China card has RMB$200 of value, and she is selling it to me at a discount of RMB$100. It turns out the she has stuck the price stickers on the words that read "RMB$55 value, uniform pricing for the entire China". When I found out I was furious.

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3) Dangerous Taxi Drivers

Never ever take an unlicensed taxi. Not only will they charge exorbitant prices, they may also drive you to a place where the rest of their gang lies in wait to rob you. Always take a real taxi that charges by the meter.

The unlicensed taxi drivers are those people walking around busy areas with holding a bunch of keys. They often solicit customers actively.

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4) Bargaining

Unless you are very rich, bargaining skills are compulsory for shopping in China. Cheap as the goods may seem to richer countries, it can be cheaper.

For clothes, asking for half their quoted price and then pretending to walk out of the shop will often close the deal. Electronic items, however, may not enjoy such a large discount.

Many sellers are known to use strong and highly persuasive techniques to get you to buy from them, much like hard-selling. [You will know what I mean when you meet one of them.] It is important to learn to say 'no' to them.

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5) Language

It is rare to find Chinese shopkeepers who speak English, or any other foreign language. If you do not know Mandarin, or the dialect being spoken in the area, then it will be much harder to bargain and shop. In Zhuhai (bordering Macau) and Shenzhen (bordering Hong Kong), the dominant dialect is Cantonese.

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6) Beggars

There are many beggars in China, and it is very hard to tell which are genuine cases and which are just out to earn money.

At one time, I saw a young teenage girl knelling on the street, with the words "Need $10 to take bus home" scribbled in front of her. I decided to let that pass.


Another time, an adorable child pestered me singing Chinese songs wishing me good luck in a sad and tired tone. It was hard to resist ignoring him. I decided to give him some sweets and a RMB$1 coin, causing another child to appear. They asked for me, and I gave a MOP$1 coin to the new child.

Both of them are obviously from the family (or syndicate). I told them to share the sweets and I don't have any more to give or I can't take the bus home. They ran off happily, perhaps because they don't have to give the sweets to their "supervisor". All this time, I was watching my bag to make sure that their tiny fingers don't touch the rest of my money.


If you want to give to the beggars, be discrete and quick. Otherwise, a crowd of beggars (and potential pickpockets) will mill around you asking for donations.

Cheap Macao Money Changer

Tai Fung Bank has the best exchange rates. A 0.8% commission is all they took from me when they changed my Singapore dollars into Patacas. [Update: The commission as of September 07 has increased to 2.5%.]

The best deal is their Hong Kong dollar exchange rate. They offered 1.03 Patacas to the Hong Kong dollar when the official exchange rate was 1.029.

http://www.taifungbank.com/eng/market/market_exchangerates_mop.html
Note: The rates only show up in Internet Explorer.

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Tai Fung bank closes at 5pm, leaving you with only the ATM machine and money changers if you arrive late.

For the ATM machine, the minimum commission you need to pay is 1.6%, plus any bank and ATM charges. There may also be "advances" and other hidden charges that your home bank may charge you, especially if you use a credit card. Unless you don't mind spending lots of money, do your homework.

You can try money changers, but if you are changing anything other than Hong Kong dollars and Renminbi, you may be in for a shock. The last time I tried changing Singapore money, they took an 8% commission. However, they may charge only around 1% commission for the former 2 currencies.

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A frequent traveler's tip is to change your money into Hong Kong dollars and spend it as equal to Patacas. But beware that you are paying 3% more. It all adds up if you go shopping or visit a hotel.

If you are a budget traveller like me, go ahead and change it to Patacas. Just change any remainder back again before you leave or you may be stuck with them for good.

Fake HKD$1000 notes

Avoid HKD$1000 notes. Instead, ask for HKD$500 notes.

Recently there were many high quality fakes which fooled even the banks. These were notes issued by HSBC in 2000 and 2002. Many shops are no longer willing to accept HKD$1000 notes so you may get stuck with them.


The latest counterfeits differ from the genuine notes in three ways:

First, the silver metallic ink on the front circular pattern in the bottom left corner is dim on the fake notes but bright and shiny on the genuine ones.

Second, the concealed denomination 1000 in the lower right rectangular block, when viewed horizontally, appears weak or missing on the fakes.

Third, the holographic image showing HK$1,000 and the bauhinia pattern in the window thread are not clear and shimmer less on the counterfeits.

Free Macao Debit Card

If you need to do any online shopping, you can get the free BNU Net-Card. It has no annual fees. This (of course) assumes that you have opened a bank account with BNU, which requires an employment pass or resident card.

However, be aware that many online businesses no longer accept credit or debit cards issued by Macau banks.

Tiger Airways, a budget airline based in Singapore, is one of those companies. This is despite the fact that they fly direct to Macau from Singapore and the Philippines. Booking now has to be done through a travel agency, which will cost a few hundred more Patacas.

Avoid Holding Macao Patacas

The Pataca is Macau's official currency.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macau_pataca

Unfortunately, you won't want to hold on to it. It is highly unpopular outside Macau. Even in Hong Kong, you will have a hard time changing it into other currencies.

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But it may be too late - if you are already outside Macao with a load of Patacas.

If you are in the Zhuhai area of China, fret not. You might be able to change it. If the banks don't accept it, you can use it to buy something in the shops.

The shopkeeper may redirect you to an illegal money changer if he does not accept your money. Just beware of counterfeit Renminbi notes (especially for 50 and 100 Yuan).

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Otherwise you can ask a Macau friend, or just keep your cash for the next visit to Macau.

HKD$ = MOP$ on price quotes

If you are a new, unsuspecting tourist, you may think that if prices are quoted in HKD, it means that you need to pay in Hong Kong dollars.

Not so. If you have Macau Patacas, you can pay at the same price, and thereby pocket an unstated 3% discount.