Upvote:2
I travelled to Prague back in 2011. What struck me instantly were the numerous little exchange offices all around town. I never went into one of them. Just chose an ATM in a decent street and withdrew money. My base currency is EURO as well. Now 6 years later it must be the same, if not even better. Good luck.
For the rest, on getting a good rate, I go with the answer of trollster.
Upvote:3
The best option I found was to use a Forex card to withdraw cash at the atm. ATM's can be found towards the left of both the main staircases leading out of the station.
Directly withdrawing using a Deutsche bank card incurs fees + a horrible conversion rate. Swiping a card at an money exchange shop incurrs 7-12% charge form the exchange shop(Negotiable on the spot) and additionally a conversion charge by your bank. On top of this, banks always have a worse currency conversion rate than the current market rate.
Also , if you can carry Euros in cash, you will incur the lowest conversion charges. Dont exchange them anywhere in the main station or near the major tourist places(Charles bridge, Old town etc). I found good rates in shops on the main road going south as you exit the station.
Upvote:3
I am posting this, just to share my experience.
The forex charges are applied by your bank, and in my case it is 5.99 EUR each time I withdrw money from ATM, and around 1.50 EUR each time I pay using my card. Thus, withdrawing a large sum, depending on your need, might be beneficial for you.
I withdrew money from Česká spořitelna ATM at Praha Main Train Station.
One point to be noted, as also pointed by @trollster, is that I got 2 options while withdrawing the money:
I saw that for the later, the exchange rate is pretty bad, so I went with the former one, assuming it won't be worse than this. With this choice, I got approximately 27.02 CZK/EUR exchange rate from the withdrawal (which might be unrelated with the choice of ATM you have), which is also the official rate at this moment.
Apart from this, I also exchanged some EURs, I was carrying, from a place near Národní třída, named something like (Ex?)Change 0% Commission. I got an exchange rate of 26.20 CZK/EUR there without any additional charges, and was able to exchange small amount of euros such 20-25.
Summing up, it is best to know about the forex charges of your bank beforehand and then withdraw money from ATM, when withdrawing large sum.
Upvote:4
There's at least one ATM directly in the lobby of Praha hl.n. train station. It's approximately at the lot 4 or 5 in the lower floor at this chart.
Basically, as you descend by escalator from the arrivals/departures lobby to the main lobby, keep right and you should hit it.
It's not a bank-affiliated ATM, so no idea what the fees are.
Upvote:9
I had gone to Prague in the month of August 2016. I withdrew around 2200 CZK which was around 80 Euros. When I checked my Deutche Bank statement, I saw I was charged around 83 in total. So around 3 Euros extra.
I was on a transit at Prague on my way to Krakow last month. My friends and I withdrew 1000 CZK which was around 36 Euros, and our DB statement showed a total amount of 40 Euros approx.
So, around 3-5 Euros in both cases (in Euros). We chose ATMs in both the cases because that is what we were advised. There are plenty of ATMs at the bus stop/train stop/and around. Also, choose to withdraw in CZK equivalent and not Euros, you can save a few bucks there. For example, we chose to withdraw 2200 CZK instead of choosing 80 Euros. The latter would have given us a few CZK less. I hope you can understand.
Have a nice trip to Prague.