Cheap Travel Money Discussion Area

dzug1

emma15 wrote: »

Hi

Thanks for the tips on your travel money page. Am I missing something with regards to Travellers Cheques? Why wouldn't this be an alternative to using your debit/credit cards?

You can order them at the post office commission free (I think they only charge on the Sterling AMEX travellers cheques) and they buy back commission free.

So in theory, you take some cash with you and travellers cheques knowing you have the security (if you lose them).

Thanks

You are missing two things with TCs:

they are awkward to change and it may cost you

although they are commission free, they are not cost free - the Post Office loads the exchange rate by 5 or 6% when selling and getting on for 10% when buying back. So if you buy them, don't use them and cash them back in it's cost you 15% or so of your original expensiture.

Security is the only good thing about them

dzug1

rangerbabe wrote: »

So, fellow moneysavers, my question is, as A&L are part of Santander, will my card be subject to all the charges, or not????
What about one of those pre-paid cards, I have always avoided them in the past but having seen them mentioned on this site I am considering them as an option too.

A&L are not yet part of Santander in any practical way - you will pay A&L charges

The best prepaid cards are a good option

Notrouble_2

I am traveling to the US next spring for up to 3mths and have Dollars in cash, about $5000 to take with me, but would rather load up a card here (Northern Ireland) before going so I wont be carrying large amounts of cash while traveling
Any suggestions which card I should be looking at. Citibank looked promising except for the massive regular income required.

keith160377

gnats_chuff wrote: »

Columbia must a be an exciting place to visit - have you been before?

Hello! Nope not been before, but my girlfriend is Colombian and I'm going to be staying with her for almost 4 weeks

Since my previous post, I've now been looking into Currency Cards, two of which spring to mind, but I do not know which is best to use. There is FairFX and CaxtonFX. Both of these cards, I can use in Colombia, but the problem is, I've been trying to work out which is the best one and I've got so many numbers in my head its making my hair fall out.

Can anybody please help me out?!?!?

First of all FairFX offer the $ and the € Cards and Caxton offer the Global Currency card.

With Caxton, I can put Sterling on it, but will get 2.5% less than the Wholesale exchange rate. Current rate at time of writing this is $3,370 to £1 (Wholesale I think).

With FairFX there is a charge of either $2 or €1.50 per ATM withdrawal, but the wholesale rate is only 0.3% . However, the rates to Colombian Pesos are as follows at the time of writing:-

$1 = $2,019 Pesos
€1 = 2,880 Pesos

But you get more dollars and Euros for your £1, which is the confusing thing!!

I have been trying to work out the best card taking into account all charges / rates, but can't seem to accurately work out which card I would get more for my money.

I'm going away in 4 weeks, but will have to order the card soon!!!

Or would it be a good idea to get a card from Caxton and a card from FairFX? If so, which card from FairFX would be best? I know that the rate changes from day to day, but I'm just trying to get a rough idea on which one is best. I'd be extremely grateful for any advice / help.

Thanks in advance,

Regards,

Keith

ikr2

Just seen the MSE email with the warning about buying travel money on certain debit cards. This came too late for me. We went to Spain and before going I opened a Nationwide account for spending on debit whilst there.

However I bought our travel cash through BUPA using my Lloyds debit card.

I was not impressed to find a £4 charge on my Lloyds account for this when I got back - it wiped any saving I'd made by shopping around for travel cash. If I;d known I would have used my shiny new Nationwide debit card (which saved us a pretty penny whilst in Spain)

I have Nationwide offering £50 to switch my DDs to them. I will be phoning up Lloyds to ask for my £4 back or will finally after 19 years pull the plug on our joint account with them and move to Nationwide

sted84

I went to LA with a group of friends last year. For our travel money we got our travel money on a prepaid travel card. We used FairFX who were brilliant. The rates are simply unbeatable. Cards are currently available in either Dollar or Euros and work just like standard MasterCard credit cards but without the credit checks and risk of over spending.

Only problem we found was there was a charge to actually get the card if you got less than £500 of currency BUT, for our latest Euro trip we found a way around it. If you go though computicket.co.uk/travel-money.html you avoid the £9.95 charge!! This means you could get a card, load it up with just $10 or €10 then top it up as and when you need to. Top ups are done online and take just 2 hours to clear. Great value and convenience. Perfect for the money conscious traveller.

beefyburt

Just back from France. Used my LLoyds TSB debit card to buy stuff and have been charged £1.00 transaction charge each time i used it and the exchange rate was 1.2185, which i think is very good:j. Last year i withdrew cash from a cashpoint in France and was charged a £1.00, plus the rate was very good. Also used a Tesco Clubcard credit card, which promises no charges- but not got statement yet.

Bluebirdnick

bleach_blonde wrote: »

Dear all,

I am a newbie but am a regular to this site.

I have just tried to apply for an Abbey Zero credit card but was told I could not unless I earned over £7500. I am a student and earn just over £2000. I then tried the Post Office - you have to earn over £8000. I had no problem with Nationwide when applying last year, I have savings etc, and my experian report is fine. Unfortunately, I cannot use my Nationwide Credit Card or Flex A/C this year because I am off to New York. This credit card will only be used for holiday to get the better exchange rate than using cash. Can anyone offer any advice on what I can do? I thought of listing one of my parents first but my mum works part time earning just under the thresholds again and my Dad was made redundent only last week.

Thanks

Hi

I'd like to hear if anyone has advice on this too. I earn more than the thresholds you mention, but the Post Office (I think it is Bank of Ireland) rejected me too. I looked at my credit reports; I'm pretty clean. I have no credit cards, and my aggregate overdraft across 4 current accounts comes to less than half of my monthly gross salary. I went over my overdraft limit 3 times in 2007 on one account, but that was for less than £10 each time, and I can't imagine that that would cause my application to be rejected. All payments to store cards, credit cards, mobile phone companies etc (all of which were cancelled long ago) were made on time.

Does anybody know what could have caused the rejection? I called the Post Office and they confirmed that there was no mis-match in the data (which causes auto-rejections). I've now applied for a Santander account, and I've got a healthy current account balance in my A&L account as well as some savings, so I'm hoping they accept me... but was just wondering if anybody knew why I may have been rejected, and what I can do about it?

jturton81

Just a couple of questions regarding the Santander Zero:
1. If the Santander zero credit card is topped up well into the green before leaving, is this a way to avoid the interest charges on cash withdrawals? If so, making the effort of pre-loading the card before leaving, rather than waiting until the end of the month to pay it off, Santander totally FREE to use - sounds good to me!
2. Can I confirm that the zero percent currency conversion fees result in exchange rates that are exactly in line with mainstream inter-bank rates (ie, if I was to compare my rate for a given purchase with that on xe.com, would it be exactly the same).

Cheers.

nzsuem

Can someone please help me. I currently have a Lloyds TSB Visa debit card & Mastercard credit card. I see these are the "cards from hell" to use while travelling especially if withdrawing cash from ATM's. I'm thinking about travelling around Africa again and wonder which travel card would be the best. I know that most are Mastercard and Mastercard is not widely accepted in Africa (I know this is true as I've been before). Ideally I'd load it up before I go (ie a pre-pay is ideal) and then use it get local currency as and when needed. Is there a visa pre pay that can do this and won't charge me the earth???