When in Mexico, go for the peso

I saw in the Travel section [Letters, Feb. 20] that a fellow reader experienced difficulty using American credit cards and ATMs in Mexico.

I’m sorry she experienced difficulty on her trip, but I was recently in Puebla, Oaxaca and Xalapa, Mexico, where my wife and I discovered that ATMs readily dispensed pesos for our cards and that hotels in all three cities were pleased to conduct transactions with our U.S.-issued credit cards.

We also used credit cards for such retail purchases as bus travel between those cities and some restaurant bills.

I don’t doubt that some small shops in Mexico aren’t set up to handle credit cards, but I believe they are the exception. Other than in border cities, where the dollar and peso are used interchangeably, the Mexican economy is built on the peso, not the dollar.

Visitors may be able to use dollars, but I’m certain they will get a better exchange rate by getting pesos from a bank.

Jay Berman

Manhattan Beach