I am hearing today from a number of American travelers that they are experiencing problems with getting euros at bank ATM machines with US issued debit cards. It involves a number of people from around the US and different banks. The Spanish banks have said that it is not a problem with thier end. Has anyone on this forum heard any rumors of this. I am leaving on Monday for the CF so I’m trying to be prepared.
I have spent a total of seventeen months in Spain, spread out over 2015-2018. I carry a credit card and a debit card from a credit union, and a debit card from an unrelated bank.
ONE day out of all that time none of the cards worked in ATMs at several banks in one Spanish city. I used WiFi in one shop to contact the credit union, and after getting information from them, I concluded that the city had an internet outage and that the ATM messages were misleading.
Summary: American cards will almost always work fine in Spain. (And for what it's worth, I have never had a problem in two dozen other countries. The only other problem was when an ATM in the Beijing airport demanded a six-digit PIN when all my cards have four-digit PINs.)