'Spanish cash machine gave me more info than I'd bargained for...' blog discussion

Former_MSE_Penelope

This is the discussion to link on the back of Martin's blog. Please read the blog first, as this discussion follows it.

Read Martin's "Spanish cash machine gave me more info than I'd bargained for..." Blog.

Please click reply to discuss below.

glossyhair

Wow! 10k in 49 minutes is pretty impressive!! Well done :-)

bubbles0169

iiii was just about to say...
'never mind the card, you ran for nearly 50 minutes?

in a gym?

while on a short break?

to southern spain??

now i bet that was a dear gym trip
*roll eyes smily*
:rotfl:
but yeah well done:D

mattytun

Any pics of you on the beach with mrs MSE.............:eek:

miller

The rate is unlikely to be near that of CaxtonFX/FairFX. So I'd guess 2.5% markup on that rate then the 2.5% commission. We're looking more like 5%.

Then using say CaxtonFX in its non-native currency attacts a further 2.5% (not applicable to UK debit cards). Pressing the wrong button would have haemorraged about £7.50 per £100 equiv.
http://www.caxtonfxcard.com/traveltips.asp?dist=CAXTGENL (see section 2)

The FairFX card generally has a better exchange rate (say 0.44%), but a cash withdrawal fee (about £1.32), means unless you withdraw in EUR equiv chunks of £300 (no thanks) CaxtonFX wins.

So I'd go for FairFX for purchases and CaxtonFX for cash withdrawals (if ignoring Nationwide which wins overall). I'd also be tempted to empty both of these before returning to avoid the renewal fees.

A good tip is to use the duty free at the airport grab a bottle of your preferred tipple, offload any spare cash+coins and dump the rest on the card.

camaj

I make that running at 12.2 km/h for 49 mins. I did a similar speed the last time I went to the gym but got bored after 20mins. Also I was sweating buckets and I'm really paranoid about sweating on the machines because they told me it's a big no-no

IanO

"Lisa was quite cunning when she heard this, bringing a small camera to give to me and Mrs MSE asking if we’d mind taking a few diary cam notes of the trip as it’d help the film".

So someone gave you something to take through customs and you did!

Now there's a man who likes to live dangerously.

nomoneytoday

When I was on a package holiday with Thomas Cook in Tenerife a Travel rep selected GBP payment for a credit card payment slip for an excursion, and pressed enter so I couldn't change it back to EUR! The GBP payment included a commission not already on my Nationwide card.

They "made" an extra £2 out of me that day, but lost the next holiday profit as I booked elsewhere..!

bubbles0169

IanO wrote: »

"Lisa was quite cunning when she heard this, bringing a small camera to give to me and Mrs MSE asking if we’d mind taking a few diary cam notes of the trip as it’d help the film".

So someone gave you something to take through customs and you did!

Now there's a man who likes to live dangerously.

?? it was a camera not a zipped up suitcase ??

joolsleeds

Just to add to Martin's article, Santander have announced that their customers now get free cash withdrawals at Santander ATM's in Spain.

HTH

bigwigtom

Martin - one thing you don't mention in your post is that many banks charge a fee for any foreign transactions - irrespective of the currency. For instance, I found when using my Lloyds TSB current account (and being forced to pay in GBP by a bar) I was still charged £1.50 for the transaction as it was non-domestic.

Of course, these fees do still apply when paying in a foreign currency (plus the issuing bank's own loaded exchange rate), but it is worth bearing this in mind if you have a choice of cards to withdraw from.