Having returned recently from Seoul for our big 2025 family Asia trip, here are some insights we gained as a first-timer.
Getting Cash from Global ATMs
Refilling a T-money card requires cash – cold hard cash. We did some research online and from our past experiences. We went into South Korea thinking that carrying our Charles Schwab Investor Checking Account debit card could get us the cash for refilling our T-money card.
The truth is, whenever you’re traveling to a new country, no amount of research will get you 100% prepared. This is no different in this case. Since ICN airport is quite far away from Seoul, we had the option of taking a bus or the a’rex to get to Seoul. Since we weren’t confident on taking the airport buses, we chose to travel by train. This required our T-money card to be filled.
Again, T-money card requires cash and since our online research tells us to go to the global ATMs, we walked up to the global ATM to get cash. Although we managed to get cash, a few points stood out.
Withdrawing cash from ATM in increments of 50,000 KRW will end up with 50,000 KRW bills. Maybe it is lost in translation, when we tried to withdraw 100,000 KRW, machine asked us how many 50,000 KRW bills did we want. We answered 0. We thought the ATM will ask for smaller denomination after that. After all, we did ask for no 50,000 KRW bills. But immediately, the machine started counting money and spit out 2 50,000 KRW bills. Now our traveling companions tried to withdraw 80,000 KRW. That time, the ATM did give them smaller denominations to satisfy their withdrawal amount.
Choosing VISA network withdrawal may have resulted in DCC? As of the time of writing, we have NOT yet gotten our ATM fee refunds back in Charles Schwab. We suspect it has something to do with choosing the VISA network on the ATM. During the ATM withdrawal, question popped up on the screen to ask for transaction network. VISA was the only option. Again, maybe stress of travel got to us. But we did not see any other options.
OK, so I ended up with 50,000 KRW bills, can I get change?
To tell the truth, we were flustered about our 50,000 KRW bills. Do we walk into CU and attempt to ask for change? Do we ask the currency exchange folks? What about the different bank kiosks? Or even try to poke our way around the WOWpass machine?
Holding 50,000 KRW bills feels like holding USD$100 bills. May places hate taking big bills; some don’t even accept them at all.
But a different idea came up. Does the T-machine refill machines give change?
Yes! T-money refill machines give change. This various by country where refilling a transit card via a machine requires exact change. But we thought, hey let’s give it a try. Long story short, we were able to get 30,000 KRW change back (1 – 20,000 KRW and 1 – 10,000 KRW) from the T-money refill machines at the airport.
And there you go, some tips and notes to watch out for when you first arrive in South Korea. (Of course, we have USD cash on hand as a backup and you should too if ATM solution fails on us!)
Next, we explore our T-money card usage and if we ended up getting a ClimateCard for our 5 day visit to Seoul.