Cheap Travel Money Discussion Area

seaweed5254

Hi All, Am in America now and am curretnly using my Nationwide debit card for withdrawals and purchases. It's my first day to use it yesterday. Is there a way of knowing what the exchange rate is ? Also, is it cheaper to use my A&L credit card since i have a promtional offer of 0% interest on purchases til may 2010 ?

Appreciate your comments..

Thank you.

GeorgieBL

hi, using your card it should be around 1.5875...

rizzla

nationwide flexaccount cash card - is the 1% load applied on the exchange rate or the total withdrawn?

dzug1

rizzla wrote: »

nationwide flexaccount cash card - is the 1% load applied on the exchange rate or the total withdrawn?

It works out exactly the same whichever way you do it - but on the statement the exchange rate they show includes the 1%.

dzug1

seaweed5254 wrote: »

Hi All, Am in America now and am curretnly using my Nationwide debit card for withdrawals and purchases. It's my first day to use it yesterday. Is there a way of knowing what the exchange rate is ? Also, is it cheaper to use my A&L credit card since i have a promtional offer of 0% interest on purchases til may 2010 ?

Appreciate your comments..

Thank you.

There's no way of knowing the exact exchange rate until afterwards. It will vary- trivially - between different transactions on the same day

http://www.corporate.visa.com/pd/consumer_services/consumer_ex_rates.jsp

will give a rough idea

Your A&L card will be more expensive - it charges 2.75% (edit - no, 2.99%) on the exchange rate, Nationwide charge 1%.

dzug1

NeilM wrote: »

Travelex only have airport branches, which are well known for giving a poor exchange rate, which is what you get when closing your card.
.

And when you load it as well.

However they don't only have airport branches - my local Sainsburys has a BdeC that sells Travelex cards

princessbeer_uk

pandora205 wrote: »

Just bumping this as I'm still not sure! I don't have a credit card and there isn't time to get one. I have a Lloydstsb debit which would cost a fortune to use more than once or twice (eg payment for car hire has to be by this I think). I will take cash though am unhappy about lots, which leaves Travel Money Cards.

Travelex do NZ dollars but I could be left with some and not go back for some time.

PO Money Card is in dollars, sterling or euros and there is a fee for spending/cashing in other currencies. So - what do I do?

Thanks

Hi Pandora

Have fun in New Zealand - I'm planning to go later this year - can't wait! I'm lucky as I've already got an Abbey Zero credit card (for big purchases like car hire, hotel rooms) and a CaxtonFX pre-pay card (Global Traveller) to withdraw money day to day.

I'd recommend the CaxtonFX Global Traveller card though - you load it up in pounds (their minimum is £100 - eek) and use it like a cashcard when you are there. You can use it like a credit card (for car hire), but beware that with things like car hire, the car hire company puts a deposit on funds in your account (effectively freezing the amount they are holding as a bond) and you might find you can't take any money out!!

Have a fab time!

benboo_2

Some comments on Martin's original article, as I understand it the Santander Zero card is only available if you have a mortgage with Santander and are not behind with your payments?

Each year we travel a lot in Africa. At first we took USD travellers cheques and USD cash then just cash as TC's are a nightmare to use in all African countries. Then we found using our Cahoot Debit card at ATMs was the most cost efficent option, then two years ago we added the Nationwide Debit card as there was no charge on cash withdrawals although we found their exchange rates were worse than Cahoots.

Now that Nationwide have introduced charges for withdrawals outside Europe we found in 2009 that using Nationwide was more expensive than Cahoot on every transaction i.e if we drew money twice on the same day sometimes at the same time it was always cheaper with Cahoot so now we don't use the Nationwide card unless there is some hitch with Cahoot, which brings me to my last comment, always take two debit cards in case of problems with one provider. Maybe Martin needs to refresh his article?

dzug1

benboo wrote: »

Some comments on Martin's original article, as I understand it the Santander Zero card is only available if you have a mortgage with Santander and are not behind with your payments?

Each year we travel a lot in Africa. At first we took USD travellers cheques and USD cash then just cash as TC's are a nightmare to use in all African countries. Then we found using our Cahoot Debit card at ATMs was the most cost efficent option, then two years ago we added the Nationwide Debit card as there was no charge on cash withdrawals although we found their exchange rates were worse than Cahoots.

Now that Nationwide have introduced charges for withdrawals outside Europe we found in 2009 that using Nationwide was more expensive than Cahoot on every transaction i.e if we drew money twice on the same day sometimes at the same time it was always cheaper with Cahoot so now we don't use the Nationwide card unless there is some hitch with Cahoot, which brings me to my last comment, always take two debit cards in case of problems with one provider. Maybe Martin needs to refresh his article?

That's not my understanding of the Santander Zero card. It may be one particular qualification for getting one but it's certainly not the only one

And I find your statement about Cahoot difficult to believe - they charge 2.25% overseas fee plus 1.5% ATM fee as against Nationwide's 1% with no ATM fee. Something doesn't add up. That's an awful big difference on what should be the same Visa exchange rate. The most likely explanation is that you are reading the exchange rate back to front and that Nationwide are still best. Anything else implies one or more of Cahoot, Nationwide, Visa and the local bank fouling up bigtime.

http://www.cahoot.com/rates_fees/rates_fees.html

Agree about the two cards though.

Nicky23_2

I'm so totally confused now

We're going to South Africa in June - we currently have an Abbey debit card, Lloyds TSB debit card and a Barclays debit card - from what i've read on here we should avoid using these at all??!!

I've read up about the Travelex cash passport which sounds the best option to me - does anyone have an opinion for me on this please?