South Africa - money question

[ruby1234]

We're going to Cape Town in a few weeks for a couple of weeks.
Just wondering about taking currency / credit cards / travellers cheques? Staying in upmarket hotels, so likely to have safes etc. I would assume that credit cards are widely accepted? We could take enough currency for the 2 weeks, or could we take travellers cheques and cash them in the hotels?
First visit to SA, so any advice very welcome!

They have ATMs, it's not the Third World! Just use them in a pair, in daylight, in a public place. Don't carry excess cash, just what you need.

Nobody uses travellers cheques any more. Take some cash then use ATMs. Pay hotel bills with credit card

Travellers cheque are old hat and are hardly used any more.

Although South African authorities state officially that only one blank passport page is required, some officials insist on two blank pages. You should therefore make sure you have at least two blank pages in your passport on arrival.

Inform the credit card company before you leave the UK that you will abroad so that they do not put a stop marker on your credit card.

You cannot bring any more than 10,000 rand in cash into SA.

There is a high incidence of credit card fraud and fraud involving ATMs. Make sure your PIN is not seen by others when withdrawing money from an ATM. Refuse offers of help from bystanders. Don’t change large sums of money in busy public areas.

Protect any documents containing details of credit cards or bank accounts.

I'd take a bit of cash but mostly use cards tbh. It's very modern there and not especially cheap.

As Attila says be careful. Personally when I'm there I don't wear flash jewellery and don't wear my wedding rings (as I'd probably do something stupid and try and keep hold of them if mugged).

Thanks everyone!

We put all lunches and dinners on our credit card and took enough cash for petrol, coffees, ice creams etc, admission tickets etc. It really is the most beautiful place and excellent value for money. When we went three years ago (in Feb) lunch was around 22 for four include fresh prawn salads etc and dinner was about 55 for four again with lovely fresh seafood and good quality meat. Entrance for the car to the Cape of Good Hope I think was about 8 which I thought was amazing value for a truly brilliant day out. I think we only got just under 12 Rand to the pound then, it's much better now.
Have a fab time.

Contact your bank and ask which atms charge least, I went recently and used a debit card Barclays and ABSA have a deal so it was quite reasonable and much less of a faff than other options.

Contact your bank and ask which atms charge least, I went recently and used a debit card Barclays and ABSA have a deal so it was quite reasonable and much less of a faff than other options.

Contact your bank and advise them when you are going. A friend of mine has ust returned from SA, having had her Barclaycard frozenby the bank while she was out there. She said the phone call to get it reinstated was ruinously expensive.

Mind you, she is South African and had advised the bank she was going there during that time period, but they cancelled her card anyway.