Bank charges to buy currency in the UK? Help!

Melancholie

Just used the cheap travel money section of the site to find the best deal on US dollars for our upcoming holiday. Did the online transaction but it failed as it didn't recognise my address (new build house) so I called them. When I gave her my card details, she asked what bank it was and said that, even though it's a debit card, my card issuer (Santander) will charge me for the transaction as it's counted as an overseas cash withdrawal. Is this right? I can't find anything about it on the site.

Thanks for any replies.

luci

Yes that's correct.

Melancholie

So how do I avoid that? We can't afford to pay a charge; we'd have to reduce the amount we take with us to cover it, and we're already taking less than we'd like.

Melancholie

Hmmm. Just called Santander and they said they DON'T charge. Very confused now!

ailuro2

We have used Crown Currency Exchange to buy currency, and we use a bank transfer to them using the 'pay bills' section of our online bank account.

don't know if this matches what you're trying to do. I know if we used our Smile bank account to BUY currency from M&S we would be charged for it as if it was an overseas transaction.

Hope that helps.

ferf1223

The travel money section here says what cards do and what cards do not charge.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/cheap-travel-money

About 1/2 way down.

Abbey is listed as one that does charge...they don't if you have an Abbey Zero account, but I'm pretty sure we were told that they do charge when I asked the question before we changed our account over.

Agree that if you use Crown Currency Exchange and make a bank transfer Abbey don't charge - we did it once before we changed to the Zero account. You can also send a cheque.

dzug1

Is your Santander card a Visa or Mastercard one?

If the latter it won't charge - if the former it probably will. Abbey and Alliance and Leicester certainly did prior to being taken over.

sscrabble

If I understand this right, if you use crown today and pay with a debit card - you get $1.58 , but have to pay a 2% fee to barclays for using cash from your current account to pay (why??) - so if you take cash pounds into the post office and get $1.55 over the counter are you are getting the same deal ? Will crown let you pay with online banking and would that not involve a fee, so you get $1.58 - if so how do you arrange that ?

Inactive

sscrabble wrote: »

If I understand this right, if you use crown today and pay with a debit card - you get $1.58 , but have to pay a 2% fee to barclays for using cash from your current account to pay (why??) - so if you take cash pounds into the post office and get $1.55 over the counter are you are getting the same deal ? Will crown let you pay with online banking and would that not involve a fee, so you get $1.58 - if so how do you arrange that ?

You use a Debit Card from a bank that does not impose these charges.

ferf1223

sscrabble wrote: »

If I understand this right, if you use crown today and pay with a debit card - you get $1.58 , but have to pay a 2% fee to barclays for using cash from your current account to pay (why??) - so if you take cash pounds into the post office and get $1.55 over the counter are you are getting the same deal ? Will crown let you pay with online banking and would that not involve a fee, so you get $1.58 - if so how do you arrange that ?

If you mean Crown Currency exchange, I didn't think you even had the option to pay by CC or debit card...you have to pay by bank transfer or cheque. You place the order online or on the phone, and they will email you instructions including their bank details.

Depending on when you need the dollars by you may be able to get an even better rate from their cancelled contracts, but you have to call to buy at those rates.

sscrabble

Thanks for the advice - I have ordered through crown currency as advised above - - more extra dollars to lose in Vegas !!!