Cheap Travel Money Discussion Area

metaphase

Reported in today's Sunday Times - Nationwide are charging a 2% commission charge and a £1 cash withdrawal fee whenever the card is used abroad. They're offering 'free' travel insurance to replace this, valuing this new perk at £80 for joint cover, but the analysis in the ST valued it at more like £35 (and it's only available if you pay £750/month into the account).

Nessie23

alanjrobertson wrote: »

Reported in today's Sunday Times - Nationwide are charging a 2% commission charge and a £1 cash withdrawal fee whenever the card is used abroad. They're offering 'free' travel insurance to replace this, valuing this new perk at £80 for joint cover, but the analysis in the ST valued it at more like £35 (and it's only available if you pay £750/month into the account).

Thanks for reminding us of Nationwides's new policy. I have a flexaccount and quite frankly I am not very impressed. Nationwide is becoming more and more like a bank and has well forgotten about caring after its members.

It is time to start looking at alternatives, it would appear
that Metrobank might fit the bill with their free withdrawals policy. http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/banking/2010/07/metro-bank-launch

dzug1

Nessie23 wrote: »

Thanks for reminding us of Nationwides's new policy. I have a flexaccount and quite frankly I am not very impressed. Nationwide is becoming more and more like a bank and has well forgotten about caring after its members.

It is time to start looking at alternatives, it would appear
that Metrobank might fit the bill with their free withdrawals policy. http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/banking/2010/07/metro-bank-launch

Main problem is a trip to London (min £20 for me) to open the account. After that it looks like paying in cheques is the only thing you can't do without visiting a branch - and even then presumably you can post them

Kido

alanjrobertson wrote: »

Reported in today's Sunday Times - Nationwide are charging a 2% commission charge and a £1 cash withdrawal fee whenever the card is used abroad. They're offering 'free' travel insurance to replace this, valuing this new perk at £80 for joint cover, but the analysis in the ST valued it at more like £35 (and it's only available if you pay £750/month into the account).

Thanks for this. I must have missed this change. Is the credit card going to start charging for Euro transactions too?

Enigmatic_Me

It would appears you will not be charged with Nationwide Credit Card. Here is a link to their press release.

http://www.nationwide.co.uk/mediacentre/PressRelease_this.asp?ID=1590

xyz123

Hi, am thinking of getting one of the four credit cards for overseas spending. wont be withdrawing any thing out of aTMs. Will have cash to cover these expenses.

What sort of exchange rates can one get on these cards. is it really comparable to obtaining currency beforehand? I dont really have a problem with carrying cash but of course if currency rates on credit cards are same as obtaining cash then i would prefer cards...

Cheers
J

metaphase

If it's a zero percent card then you get the VISA/Mastercard rate which is very very close to the rates quoted by XE.com, etc.

http://corporate.visa.com/pd/consumer_services/consumer_ex_rates.jsp is a handy calculator from VISA that lets you put in a charge if you're not on a 0% card and see what exchange rate you'll get.

My understanding is that in general at any given point in time you always get a better rate on a 0% card than by buying currency, but obviously you can't always use a card everywhere you go.

malc_b

The Zero and the Clarity AFAIR have 0% charge on cash withdrawals so you can use those to get cash from an ATM. The catch is that they charge you interest from the moment you get the cash. And if you pay off your credit card then cash is the last amount to be settled.

Hence the clever option is to have both, put purchases on one and use the other just to get cash out. Pay off the cash card as soon as you get home and in full. Pay the purchases card off as normal.

Assuming a 2 week holiday that's about 1/24 of year, so 12% APR would be 0.5%, 24% APR would be 1%. That's pretty cheap.

wookie6

Hi,

I'll be starting a round the world trip for 12 month soon and need to sort out the best methods for purchases and withdrawals worldwide.

I was orginally planning to use the Nationwide debit card, however the 1.00% fee will be increased from November 1st, therefore I'm now looking at other options.

I have read the money saving article and applied for the CaxtonFX Global Traveller card as this seems excellent (all be it the exchange rate may be slightly less than FairFX).

The MSE article suggests that only ATM Withdrawals are charged at 1.5% with the FairFX card (I believe this is the case with the dollar and Euro cards) however having looked on the FairFx site it appears all purchases and ATM withdrawals are charged at 1.5% with the Anywhere card so this doesn't look so good.

So in summary I have the Caxton FX card, but am also looking for a second low cost card (Debit, credit or other) that I can use whilst traveling just in case I can't use the Caxton one in places?

apt

Why do you think Caxton FX is better than FairFx? With Caxton you have to pay 'FX Mark Up2.5% of transaction amount where the transaction is performed in a different currency to the card'. The Fair Fx 1.5% transaction charge is the better deal.