Cheap Travel Money Discussion Area

hamish63

rfburke wrote: »

I'm getting married abroad this year and to help pay for things in Euros I set up a HSBC Euro account which gives you a cheque book in Euros. The problem is when you transfer money to the account from the current account (also at HSBC) they nail you on the exchange rate. Plus they have a fee on simply having the account. Does anyone now of a better way of doing it? Taking cash, travellers cheques or credit cards isn't practical (its a bit more expensive then your regular holiday).
Also is there a bank which gives the best exchange rate for International money transfers or are they pretty much the same?

When I paid for my wedding in Germany I used IFX (International Foreign Exchange). They got me much better rates than all others I checked against, and due to them having GBP and EUR bank accounts I simply sent the GBP to their UK located GBP account using my online banking which is free. They then paid money to my EUR account from their EUR account which also was free.

sherwoodsh

I'm taking my daughter to Japan for 3 weeks in the summer and we realise they are mainly cash based society. We also intend to travel around quite a bit. Does anyone have experience on what is the best way to take money with you for all types of expenses e.g travel food accomadation.

Biggles

sherwoodsh wrote: »

I'm taking my daughter to Japan for 3 weeks in the summer and we realise they are mainly cash based society. We also intend to travel around quite a bit. Does anyone have experience on what is the best way to take money with you for all types of expenses e.g travel food accommodation.

From an ATM using one of the usual MSE recommended cards (see https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/cheap-travel-money).

eDicky

Biggles wrote: »

From an ATM using one of the usual MSE recommended cards [URL="https://"][/URL]

ATMs in 7-eleven and other convenience stores and post offices are more likely to accept foreign cards than most others in Japan.

supermono

Hello,
Please excuse me as I am not a great writer.

I will be taking a year out and travelling through Asia. I need to withdraw cash from ATM's and MSE pointed me in the direction of We Swap. Great. I can use natwest but they want 4.75% and give me a bad exchange rate when using ATM's.
I applied to We Swap yesterday having read about them on MSE. No fees for cash withdrawls if you take out £200 at a time. Great. They failed to send me a confirmation link. I rang them up yesterday afternoon and asked for the details to be sent via e mail. I was assured that this would be done.
This morning there was still no confirmation from We Swap. So I rang them again to try and get a card sorted out. When speaking to a member of staff all I could here was very loud laughing in the background which made it very difficult to have a conversation with the adviser. I told him that I had not received details about my card. I also suggested to him that the loud laughing was extremely unprofessional.
He assured me that they would send the information through and apologised for the loud laughing from his co workers.
I,m really starting to think that We Swap will not be upto the job. I,ve tried to order a card without success and they just seem so unprofessional baring in mind that they will be handling large amounts of my money over the coming year.
So just wondering what other peoples experiences are with We Swap.

I need a card that I can load up via internet banking for free and get free cash withdrawls from ATM's in India, Sri lanka etc. This is what We Swap offer. But so far they seem to be quite useless.

Very frustrating for me as I,m off in 2 weeks.

Any advise would be great. Thanks for reading.

eDicky

supermono wrote: »

Hello,
Please excuse me as I am not a great writer.

You're better than many who post here, welcome to the forum.

I've never used WeSwap and I never would, it seems clumsy and complicated, and yours is not the first observation of their customer service shortcomings.

Best forget about WeSwap, there's no need to exchange currency in advance, the best cards such as Starling Bank and Loot convert from pounds when you use them:

https://www.starlingbank.com/

https://monzo.com/

https://loot.io/

https://www.revolut.com/

(Note that Revolut and Monzo allow £200 ATM withdrawal per month without fees, Loot allows two free withdrawals per month, then £1 fee.)

Take at least two of these, any card can be declined sometimes, lost or stolen. Always pay in the local currency and avoid any offer by an ATM to convert your pounds for you, your card needs to do the conversion at its ideal exchange rate.

Florida_Mad_101

I want to ask a question but cannot see how to do it?

I want to ask : Martin is always going on about 'Don't draw cash on a credit card' .
When we are on holiday I draw cash on my Halifax Clarity card as it's the cheapest way of doing it. I draw the cash look on my app the next day see what the figure is and transfer the money to the card. As this attracts interest from day 1 I pay it off the day after and only costs me pence saving quite a bit even on the best exchange rates posted on the site.
I need to know if this is affecting my credit profile as Halifax put forward this feature..

Please help!

alan_p_brown

'Don't draw cash on a credit card' is generally good advice, but the Halifax Clarity is one of a very few exceptions.
Sounds to like you are doing exactly the right thing, it is the way that I always do it.
As you are probably aware, but as a warning to others, just make sure that when the ATM asks whether you want to be charged in local currency or GB pounds, always select local currency so that you get Clarity's great Mastercard rates not some crummy foreign bank rate.
Someone else may comment, but I don't see any reason why this should affect your credit rating, you are using the card completely within its intended use.

AJ57

MSE lists Virgin Money's Essential Current Account as a good bet for travel money. I see very few recommendations for it on the forum. Are there any negatives other than the £1,50 cash charge? There's no need to put a certain amount in each month or set up any direct debits.

Orville

I am looking to buy Euros.

Doing a £2700 delivery quote it comes in at €3,015.90 with an exchange rate of 1.117 > However when you click through to purchase their rate is only 1 GBP = 1.0983


Does anyone why there is a difference in quoted prices?.