I had the worst experience with Amex Travellers Cheques! Those damn things are useless! I was in Germany last October and couldn't use them anywhere. Not even in capital city Berlin! I attempted to exchange them at one bank only to be told "No, because you don't have an account here." Well, duh! I'm a TRAVELLER, why would I have an account there? Luckily, my relative had an account at another bank and it was ONLY because of him that they let me cash some of them. I was humiliated. A storekeeper in Berlin looked at the cheques as if they were from another planet and didn't even know what they were. My family even laughed at me saying, "Nobody uses those anymore, and nobody takes them either. We do everything with cash and credit cards." If I had known that, I wouldn't have wasted my time and money buying these things that have the reputation of being 'safe and convenient'. Oh they're safe alright, so safe because you can't bloody well use them anywhere! A thief would have to be a moron to steal those! He wouldn't be able to cash them anywhere!
When I got home, I phoned Amex. I was bounced from one 1-800 number to another. Finally, I speak to a human who said, "Sorry, nothing I can do. Go online and fill out the form." Can you believe this backwards company makes you fill in a hard copy form and SNAIL MAIL it to them? After assembling all my documents (receipts for purchase) and writing out the tale of my ordeal, I get a letter about six weeks later telling me in a rude way to just take them back to the bank and get screwed over twice more. (First time being screwed was buying the crap in the first place. The second is converting the Euro cheques into CAD and then third exchanging them for Euros again.) So I would be losing twice more. What I wanted is compensation. I wanted Euro cash, Euro for Euro.
I'm still waiting to hear from the bank where I purchased the cheques. The manager there couldn't believe that I couldn't cash them anywhere and that the problem must be Germany only. It's not. I had a similar problem, but not as extreme, 10 years ago in Italy (Milan). I had to go to a money exchange place there. She tried calling me a liar, basically saying that I could cash them at any bank and that she's had no problems in Spain and Portugal.
Let my story be a warning to everyone out there: NEVER NEVER NEVER purchase AMEX Travellers Cheques. They are totally, 100% useless everywhere in the world. You will be laughed at, kicked out of banks (unless you have a relative there), and disappointed in stores and anywhere else you try to use them. AMEX sucks, it is the worst company to deal with ever!