state which countries you are meaning here ?

Yes, I found most ATMs in Canada and the USA both give you twenties which is small enough. In Hungary, on the other hand, many ATMs will give you 20 000 HUF notes (which is like 60+ EUR) and can cause problems.

My own strategy is to simply avoid cash-only places (assuming it's a developed country).

At least on German ATM's, you can often "trick" them: you can either press a button for a preset amount, OR enter the amount manually. If you enter manually, it will often give you a choice on what bills you want.

Often ATM's in Italy, France, Germany, UK ask you what note size you prefer when withdrawing.

Please note the spelling of ATMs as a plural. There is utterly no apostrophe. (Apostrophe is used in English for possession - like "John's car".) In English, apostrophe is totally unrelated to plurals in any way.

@JoeBlow Except for "it's", which is a contraction.

@JoeBlow "Depressing"? Maybe the asker simply spent the last 16 hours actually travelling and doing things, not on the internet...? I'm curious to know which countries too, but we don't need to know. Certainly not urgently!

@Michael: "Except"?

@JoeBlow Actually, there is one way apostrophe is used to indicate plurals in English, but it's for the specific case of a letter being referred to as a letter, such as "Mind your p's and q's". Due to this, some people also want to mind their ATM's. (And I say this as someone really bugged by gratuitous apostrophes.)

You know, that's just ps and qs. For some typographers, "p"s and "q"s. ATMs with an apostrophe is totally wrong. It's just a plural, nothing to it. And here's a comic! achewood.com/index.php?date=09122008

@JoeBlow Apostrophes when pluralizing initialisms are not incorrect, at least according to some sources. More modern style seems to be to avoid them, but they're not wrong. And just about every style guide on the planet advocates apostrophes for pluralizing lower-case letters so you're flat-out wrong to call that wrong.

Hmm,. (1) in the case of ATMs it makes no sense - there is no argument for - adding an apostrophe. Even reaching for an argument, what could an argument be? it's "like possession" .... or? what? (2) the overwhelming clearcut present advice is (of course) don't do it. In the very link you gave, Oxford English Dictionaries The general rule is that you should not use an apostrophe to form the plurals of nouns, abbreviations, or dates made up of numbers: just add s Couldn't be more clear-cut.

anyway this is off topic, cheers

@JoeBlow I have tried to withdraw from ATM in UK, Germany and Turkey and they didn't have the option of choosing the notes combination. In UK and Germany usually the problem is limited to using ticket machine. But in Turkey it became a big issue since many places don't want to take 100 lira note

@JoeBlow: You are mistaken. > But the use of apostrophes with initialisms like “learn your ABC’s and “mind your P’s and Q’s” is now so universal as to be acceptable in almost any context.

Hmm, i've not had a problem using £20 notes (the largest that ATMs here dispensive) in rail/metrolink ticket machines in the UK, it takes them a while to clunk out the change but it works fine.

Hi @LightnessRacesinOrbit. Your sentence "You are mistaken" is naive, no matter how hard it tries and fails to be decisive. You have given an excellent example of a minor authority which points out (quote) that it "violates the rule". They then go on to say (to paraphrase) "Don't worry about it! Lots of people violate the rule, and you can too." For the opinion of say the OED, see quote above.

(Note that, on "your" side as it were, even OED have given up and say that - in the case of single letters - you may as well use "p's and q's". So, stupid people are everywhere. Regarding the actual topic at hand, it's difficult to entertain an argument that the ATMs should have an apostrophe. Anyway this is off topic, cheers!)