Changing £2000 into Euro - best place?

Danyúl_II

EDIT: I should have put "moving money abroad" into title too...

I realise £2000 for some people is what they'd take on holiday and so many wouldn't shop around too much when exchanging it, but for me it's a huge amount and I want to lose as little as possible during exchanging. (Moving abroad...)

Can anybody recommend the best place to change said amount? / Best place to arrange for it to be sent to a foreign bank account, namely a German current account?

I am aware of TravelEX online doing good deals on collecting cash and travellers cheques - anybody aware of other places where I might get a few more Euro for my money? Maybe HiFX?

Thanks a bunch!

Danyúl_II

Any ideas?

Pelican_eats_pigeon

It depends where you are located. If you are in London, this is the best rate you will get anywhere: http://www.iceplc.com/cgi-bin/live/ecommerce.pl?site=iceplc.com&state=survey&action=display&survey=10&menu=branchcollection&suppress_header=yes&zone=waterloo. They also have a Glasgow branch with slightly worse rates.

If you are not in London or Glasgow and don't plan on visiting either, you will want to investigate the possibility of withdrawing it all on a UK bank account/credit card once you get to Germany, particularly if you have or can get one that doesn't charge a fee such as the Nationwide Flexaccount Visa Debit or the Santander Zero Mastercard. This will almost certainly give you the best rate.

Also, you will do better to wait as long as possible before doing the change as £ looks set to strengthen against € till autumn at least.

Danyúl_II

Thanks for that!

I've discovered I can use XE.com's trading service to get 1.22 Euro to the pound, which seems to be as good as it gets ATM. I won't change my whole 2k, but might transfer half of it to my German bank account next week.

Thanks again!

Pelican_eats_pigeon

That might work as well, hadn't actually thought of that route. It might be worth looking at XE competitors as well as I think they are not known for offering the very best rate for this sort of service.

Shame you don't live in London cause ICE were even better than the rate from XE!

I think the rate you would get on the nationwide debit card today would be 1.223, for reference.

Danyúl_II

Pelican_eats_pigeon wrote: »

That might work as well, hadn't actually thought of that route. It might be worth looking at XE competitors as well as I think they are not known for offering the very best rate for this sort of service.

Shame you don't live in London cause ICE were even better than the rate from XE!

I think the rate you would get on the nationwide debit card today would be 1.223, for reference.

My girlfriend has one of those accounts I think (well, Santander; is that the same? - or was that Abbey?!)

I'll be happy with 1.22 for the time being, fair bit better than 1.18 at Post Office etc. And if it goes up soon I will change the rest over too.

Cheers!