Transferring euros to Austria

hansi

I am booking a hotel in Austria for next Christms! and as the hotel will not accept credit cards I would like to know the cheapest way to transfer this money. I have a Smile account and I guess I could do a direct bank transfer or I could take my Nationwide card and draw the money that end. The amount will be in the region of 1800 euros. What sort of charges should I expect to pay. Haven't doen this sort of thing before so I need some advice please.

KTF

Have a read of this article here:

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1114428796,22175,

innovate

Ask the hotel whether they would accept payment via Moneybookers. You might have to offer them to pay any fees they incurr (shouldn't be more than €1.80).

I have found Moneybookers the cheapest to do electronic transfers to Euroland. Your bank is likely to charge you something between £10 and £20, and you might not get as good an exchange rate as with Moneybookers who use the ECB reference rates.

grumbler

hansi wrote:

...or I could take my Nationwide card and draw the money that end. The amount will be in the region of 1800 euros. What sort of charges should I expect to pay.

Nothing (£0), if you mean debit card.

hansi

No, I meant credit card, but if I can use a debit card,could I use my Smile card with no charges, or I suppose I could just buy the euros here with no commission and take them with me!

KTF

The Nationwide CC will impose fee of £1.50 or 1.5% on every cash withdrawal that you make as per here:

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1106765397,71685,

The Nationwide Debit card (and only the Nationwide one) will not impose any fees for taking money out of an ATM.

Smile will add a loading fee to any withdrawal you make.

innovate

If you don't need to pay the hotel until you get there, then the Nationwide debit card is a good alternative.

You can't pay the hotel with it, though - what you would need to do is draw cash from an ATM (then pay the hotel cash, which they may or may not like). You would need to draw the cash in several batches because the daily limit is (I think) the equivalent of £250.

hansi

thanks, but to do that I would have to have a current account with NW which I havent got, so I think it's gonnna be buckets of cash!

innovate

Opening a Nationwide Flexaccount is a doddle. There are no minimum pay-in requirements, so you can just pay into it what you need, when you need it.