Shuttle service. They run from LAX to the UCLA/Westwood area. She won’t be eligible for the student discount, and it will probably be more expensive than the one she turned down, but it’s still the intermediate cost between Bus and Uber.
She could also take the bus to Westwood, and walk to wherever she is staying, if that’s what she wants (it’s what I would have done at her age), but you’d have to look at the bus route and where exactly she’s staying? How close to UCLA? Maybe she turned down the shuttle because she wants to take a taxi?
I’m seeing her on Saturday, so I’ll tell her that.
That’s the impression I had, but it’s good to see it confirmed.
Again, I’ll tell her about the weather. I suspect she expects it to be super hot, but it looks like it may very well not be the case.
She will have her host family’s contact information in about 3 weeks. They are supposed to chat online to get to know each other before she arrives.
That may be my influence on her. I tend to have as many payement options as possible available when I travel. Actually, it came in handy when my both my Visa credit card and my Mastercard international debit card were randomly declined a couple of times in New York last month.
Oh, that’s really great, thanks!
As I understand it, she turned it down because she had to reapply several times and fill in the form again, and skipped it.
I once had my international credit card rejected in the US (at a major chain restaurant, for a $12 breakfast). Their computer could not process the card for some unknown reason.
Ten minutes later I get a text from my bank that my card is now cancelled and useless, and for my own protection, my account has been blocked due to “suspicious activity”..
Result: I am in a foreign country with zero money available to me.
I cleared it up, after a tense hour of telephone trees and finally a human operator.
“Cash—don’t leave home without it.”
(If anybody on this board is young, and doesn’t get the reference, …this is a paraphrase of an old slogan in commercials for Am. Express Travelers Checks)
Unfortunately, in my country credit cards work differently than the rest of the world, and are linked to your checking account. They work more like debit cards, except that payment is deferred for a month or more.
That’s unfortunate. It’s really surprising because most countries let you create credit cards by the dozens.
When my teenage daughter went to Germany for an exchange program, we got her a debit card just for the trip. She had a back up credit card from my wife as well.
How difficult is it to have a couple of different bank accounts and debit cards from each one?
I used to have to call my credit card company before I would go overseas to let them know that I was going to be using them in a foreign country. Do people do that in your country?
Yeah, it used to be required to notify them that you would be using the card from overseas. Now, they are less concerned, and the last time I notified them, they said “thanks, but not necessary.” I’m guessing that some combination of Big Data, AI algoritms and Big Brother are watching…
That sucks. Back when I was younger, I’ve gone overseas with only one credit card, but I’d never do that anymore. Too much risk of something like what happened to you.
Carrying a modest amount of cash is a wise precautions but the $800 of cash the o.p. suggested his daughter would be carrying is excessive to say the least. If there is concern about being able to rely upon a credit or debit card issued by a foreign (to the US) bank, a pre-paid debit card is a reliable option.
When I was in Japan I was able to get money from the Post Office ATM directly in yen with an exchange rate that was favorable to the in-person exchange at the airport. Since so many transactions in Japan are dine on a cash basis it was really convenient versus finding an exchange (mostly at airports or major banks) and carrying around a million yen for a month.
Having $800 whether EUR or USD on your person all day every day for the whole two weeks would be both silly and risky. OTOH, having that much in your suitcase stored in a private home and carrying enough cash for a meal or two and an incidental purchase every day is much more reasonable.
My own habit as a routine traveler was to have enough USD in my suitcase to pay for a couple nights of hotel rooms, meals, and local transport; just in case my credit cards all died. And upon arriving at country X, get $100 or $200 in local currency from an airport ATM. Then replenish that as necessary during the trip. In my case I revisited the same list of a dozen-ish countries regularly so after awhile I had a ziploc of each set of local currency and coin and only needed to top up occasionally, not on every arrival.
For the OP: if you haven’t already noticed from your NYC travels, here in THE USA nowhere except an international airport can take your weird furrin money. Most bank ATMs can dispense USD using your foreign card, but glitches are possible and fees are certain.
For sure having redundancy in credit and debit cards is pretty much must-do.
Most major banks will exchange many standard foreign currencies for dollars, albeit at an even higher exchange rate than you’d pay at the airport. But an ATM is much easier.
I don’t know about stores and restaurants accepting foreign currency * but there absolutely are currency exchanges in NYC and my guess is there are also some in Los Angeles.
* I wouldn’t expect them to, and in fact, I’m always surprised when restaurants/stores in other countries take US dollars.