Visiting Ukraine Gotchas

Visiting Ukraine

If you plan on visiting Ukraine, make sure you are prepared. Kyiv (Kiev, Київ) was our first stop in Ukraine. Due to the pandemic, we had to cancel our trip in 2020 and decided to make the trip in 2021.  Also, after visiting South Africa we could not travel directly to Turkey our final destination on this trip. We needed to spend 10 days somewhere before Turkey due to COVID travel restrictions. Therefore, visiting Ukraine now made sense and we could do the trip that was canceled.

Upon arrival at Boryspil airport, we cleared customs easily with no language issues (we don’t speak Russian or Ukrainian). The staff were friendly and verified that we had all of our required items such as health insurance (Ukrainian-based insurance company), negative COVID tests, visas, etc. My first stop at the airport was an ATM.  We needed to have some cash to be safe and our host at the apartment required cash and not a credit card. My debit card did not work on 3 different ATMs. It’s not a big deal, I am sure we could find an ATM near the apartment that would work.

Uber to Kyiv

We headed out the main doors to grab an Uber into Kyiv.  There were taxi drivers all over the place offering rides into town. We opted for an Uber as we could control the price easier and there would be no language barriers.  Unfortunately, the location for rideshare pickup was on the 4th floor of the parking deck across the street. Since we were unable to re-enter the airport to use the walkway over to the parking deck, we had to cross the street dodging cars, and then find an elevator to take us to the 4th-floor meeting point. FYI: double-check the meeting point with the information desk as a smart person would do before leaving the airport if you are taking a rideshare. It will save you time and hassle.

After successfully navigating the parking deck, we ordered the Uber. The driver circled the parking deck a few times as he didn’t know where to pick us up and he didn’t speak much English. While we were waiting, a Bolt (uber competitor) driver who spoke English came over and helped us out and called the Uber driver. Within a few minutes, we were on our way to the apartment in Kyiv. The driver asked us along the way how we would pay, since it was Uber it was via the app. I think he was trying to get paid two times. Once we said in the app, he was fine and never mentioned it again.

Early Arrival

Our flight from Istanbul arrived at around 9 AM, we were too early to check into the apartment. The host said she could meet us around 1 PM at the apartment. However, the Uber driver dropped us off at about 10:45 AM.  Since our journey started in Cape Town the previous day and we had been traveling for about 18 hours we needed fresh air. Therefore, we decided to stretch our legs and grab some breakfast and caffeine. Just around the corner from the apartment was an open cafe. We could sit outside and have fresh air along with our energy boost. We had an excellent breakfast and received a message from the host at about noon that she was at the apartment. Great news, I will pay and we can be there in less than 5 minutes.

REJECTED in Ukraine

The cafe brought me the check and I pulled out my credit card to pay. Inserted my card and a few seconds later a message appeared in Russian or Ukrainian “REJECTED”. I pulled out another card in case it was something with that card, we had just used it in South Africa and at the airport in Istanbul. Maybe it was flagged for some reason. No problem I reached into my wallet and pulled out another card. The same message popped up “REJECTED”. Now I am getting concerned, my ATM card did not work, and 2 credit cards didn’t work. Are we totally screwed for the next 10 days?

I reached back into my wallet and tried another card. A message popped up on the screen “Approved”. I can now breathe, we might be ok if we can find a working ATM. We determined that our credit cards from USBank did not work with the machines in Ukraine, our CapOne card did. At least we had a plan for purchases while visiting Ukraine.

What about the ATM card?

The apartment host agreed to let us pay when we were checking out a few days later. Once we were in the apartment I logged into my bank (where the ATM card was from). There was a notification that my accounts had been locked due to security protocols and to call them to remove the lock. That seems legit since we were in a former eastern block country. I called the bank and they stated since they were also a brokerage (E*trade), Ukraine was on a blacklist.  I asked them to remove the locks and allow us to access the funds. They stated it could take up to 4 business days as their fraud and security team had to review the case first.

Instead of waiting 4 business days, we decided to just transfer funds to our USAA account and have access from there. We initiated the transfer and it was “REJECTED”.  We had lost all access to those funds sitting in E*trade, we could only use bill pay features.  Luckily we had enough funds in another USAA account that we could move around as an interim fix to the issue. Well, that would work if our ATM card could withdraw funds from USAA.

The ATM

The apartment was directly behind the Hyatt and it had an ATM. We walked up to the Hyatt and found the ATM. I took a deep breath and inserted my card into the machine, entered my PIN, selected max withdrawal amount, and hit enter. The screen showed that I would be charged a fee, I accepted. What other option did I have at that point? FYI, I had gotten this far at the airport ATM, so I was still holding my breath. A few seconds later I heard a beep, then the sound of bills being dispensed. We had success, I did multiple transactions up to my daily limit while we were there just in case.

Conclusion

I am not bashing E*trade or USBank, this is more of a warning to have a backup plan when visiting Ukraine. I mentioned the banks that worked for us as a reference only, you may or may not have similar success. We did have a few hundred USD with us but that would have only covered a few days. If we had $500-1000 in cash, we could have exchanged it and would have been fine.

Although these issues could happen in any country, it is something to consider when traveling. However, it was the first time we had any issues. Another thing that we ran into on this trip, make sure you have a PIN on your credit cards as that might be required by some credit card processors.