Cheap Travel Money Discussion Area

bricksandmortar

Has the spread on Euro cash exchange via the Post Office always been this bad or is it a new thing?

They'll sell at under 1.13 today but buyback quote was 1.34! 20% spread! Interbank is about 1:16.

Only 75 Euro in my pocket but I left in shock. Fortunately I'm off to the Republic of Ireland next month so will be able to spend some of it there.

Looks like M&S or Eurochange might be a better bet. But still a big spread. I'd only got the cash for emergencies.

zagfles

bricksandmortar said:

Has the spread on Euro cash exchange via the Post Office always been this bad or is it a new thing?

They'll sell at under 1.13 today but buyback quote was 1.34! 20% spread! Interbank is about 1:16.

Only 75 Euro in my pocket but I left in shock. Fortunately I'm off to the Republic of Ireland next month so will be able to spend some of it there.

Looks like M&S or Eurochange might be a better bet. But still a big spread. I'd only got the cash for emergencies.

Think it's always been bad for small amounts. And no-one with any sense changes large amounts. Just keep the cash, it might just about buy you a round in Temple Bar

DiseasedBunny

Quick one hopefully: Am I better getting money before I go to Mexico next month, or use my starling bank card and pay as I need to using that? Excursions will be on credit card but for day to day spending which would be better value?  

RickyB2007

I’m going to Texas next year and have never been to the USA before. I am planning on paying for things using a 0% credit card but wanted to get some cash just in case. I’ve heard that ATMs add a percentage to the transaction so am I better to get dollars in the UK before going rather than using an ATM when I’m there?

Thanks in advance. 

eDicky

RickyB2007 said:

 I’ve heard that ATMs add a percentage to the transaction

Not a percentage, ATMs charge a fixed fee of a few dollars for each withdrawal, which varies. Buying cash dollars in the UK might cost you about 3% margin, which would be the same as a $3 fee for withdrawing $100 at an ATM. So it depends on how much you think you need and which ATM you use, etc. There's rarely an expense that can't be paid by card in the States.

If you open a Chase UK account you can withdraw fee-free from a US Chase ATM, the debit card also has no non-sterling fees and it's always best to have more than one card available when traveling.

drykid

Can anyone advise what high street bank rates are like when buying back currency?  I've tried to find rates online but all I can find is prices for buying foreign currency and not selling it back afterwards (and I know the rates for buying back are always worse.)  I was in Canada recently and unexpectedly returned with a reasonably large cash sum in Canadian dollars. My initial plan was to take it to a local high street exchange place but a) they have terrible rates (1.88 CAD to the pound); and b) there are limits as to how much currency they will exchange in one go.  Looking at a currency buyback comparison page, postal places offer much better rates (e.g. Travel FX offer 1.67 CAD to the pound) but the downside there is you have to post your cash to them, and I don't want to do that for a large amount of cash.  

(I should add that the difference between selling it back at 1.88 CAD / GBP compared to 1.67 GBP is several hundred pounds so it does make a big difference here...)

Anyway with both of the above options not looking great I decided it would be simpler to just pay it straight into my bank (First Direct) and let them handle the conversion.  But I'm struggling to find out what kind of rates they offer.  I did go into my local HSBC (who offer branch services for First Direct customers) to ask the rate, but they don't have a counter service and told me I'd have to go to the next nearest HSBC branch instead (thirty miles away.)  But the crazy thing is that they were unable to tell me what the exchange rate would be there, so I'm now faced it seems with the possibility of driving thirty miles just to be told that the HSBC buyback rate is no better than the high street places here anyway.

Alan_Bowen

Just telephone First Direct, that is what telephone banking is for!

drykid

Alan_Bowen said:

Just telephone First Direct, that is what telephone banking is for!

I guess I can try, I've never called them yet about anything as whenever I talked to my last bank (HSBC, ironically) on the phone it was always an exercise in frustration.  Although if I can't get an answer from someone face-to-face in HSBC (and it's a HSBC branch I'll have to do this at since First Direct don't have any) then my odds of getting hold on the phone to someone who will know doesn't seem very good.

eskbanker

drykid said:

Alan_Bowen said:

Just telephone First Direct, that is what telephone banking is for!

I guess I can try, I've never called them yet about anything as whenever I talked to my last bank (HSBC, ironically) on the phone it was always an exercise in frustration.  Although if I can't get an answer from someone face-to-face in HSBC (and it's a HSBC branch I'll have to do this at since First Direct don't have any) then my odds of getting hold on the phone to someone who will know doesn't seem very good.

I think you may be misunderstanding - the suggestion is to phone First Direct, not an HSBC branch, even if that's where the transaction physically ends up happening.  FD built their name on their phone banking so, even though they're part of the wider HSBC group, it would be a mistake to assume that your FD experience will be poor just because it was when you phoned HSBC....

drykid

eskbanker said:

I think you may be misunderstanding - the suggestion is to phone First Direct, not an HSBC branch, even if that's where the transaction physically ends up happening.  FD built their name on their phone banking so, even though they're part of the wider HSBC group, it would be a mistake to assume that your FD experience will be poor just because it was when you phoned HSBC....

Yeah fair point I guess I'm not used to dealing with the idea of going into one bank to do a transaction with a different one.

Anyway I have called FD now and got an answer, although I'm not entirely sure I trust it.  They quoted an indicative rate in GBP to CAD of 0.6281.  Because everyone else does it the other way around I had to convert it (1 / 0.6281) before I can compare it to other places, and doing so gives me an exchange rate of 1.59.  This seems way too good to be true, so I'm not convinced they haven't mixed up buying rates with buyback rates somehow.   But like I said originally I don't know how this stuff works, maybe your own bank *will* buyback at a much lower rate than anyone else on the high street or online will offer you?  They have a vested interest in having the money paid into your account with them after all.

(They also said that if the GBP equivalent was over £2,500 then I would need something in writing about the source of the cash also, but luckily it doesn't quite reach that figure.)

I guess at this point I might as well make the thirty-mile journey and hope that what they told me on the phone is right (or at least close to being right.)