Travel Money - Cash Withdrawel Worldwide

Dick_Turpin99

Either

http://www.caxtonfxcard.com/

or

http://www.fairfx.com/

I have been down this road a lot, starting with Barclaycard visa, finishing up with FairFX, last year I calculated that on the annual transactions I had made I actually saved myself around 1,500UKP of fees and interest charges with this card over the Visa, moreover the transactions are so transparent and instantly seen whereas with creditcards they aren't.

dzug1

nzseries1 wrote: »

I wouldn't want the exchange rate to depend on when Halifax decide to process the transaction. I want the exchange rate to be the one that applies at that exact second that I withdraw the money. Otherwise, Halifax may start delaying my transactions until it has a favourable exchange rate and... well, that just wouldn't be very good, would it! Thanks OP.

It's not Halifax who decide when to process the transaction - it's either the merchant or his bank.

dzug1

Sonay wrote: »

Dear All

Thanks for all your recent responces, I think you may not be quite understand the reasoning behind my post. The exchange rate between the Thai Baht and Pound Sterling over the recent period has not varied at all. But the variance between two different cards (Clarity & Nationwide) was 6% used on the same transaction day.

Sounds very odd - are you sure Dynamic Currency Conversion wasn't foisted on you by the ATM for the 'bad' transaction? It would be the right sort of difference though it doesn't sound the sort of trap you would fall into.

In any case you are generalising from a single transaction which is unsound logic. You can't validly state it would happen every time.

jennifernil

Party_Animal wrote: »

Thanks, so it is the right card. Can anyone advise the best way to avoid or minimise interest. I'll be taking my NW card too. I'm away almost 4 weeks so if I do use the Clarity card I'll be acrruing interest and the statement may come whilst I'm away. I wasn't planning to take my laptop. Can I set up online payments before I go so that if I know I'm going to withdraw £500, for instance, on the 31st, a payment for that amount is sent that day?
Thanks

I would set up a Direct Debit to pay the full amount every month, assuming you have the funds to do so.

If you know when you will be withdrawing money, you could set up internet payments for a few days later. But really, the interest is very reasonable, so you need to decide if it is worth the hassle.

Certainly settingup a DD to pay the full balance every month is the best way to operate the card.

abitwild

Good afternoon (or early morning!)

I've been reading with interest many of these informative posts on FX fees imposed on payments and cash withdrawals.

I thought I would add my half-penny's worth and hopefully contribute to the discussion. I travel out of the UK frequently and work in Belgium: I spent time researching this many years ago, and find I need to do so again.

Until November, my favoured 3x option for non-sterling transactions:

1. Nationwide VISA debit card,
2. Nationwide credit card, and
3. a VISA debit card issued by Wesleyan Bank.

All three of those accounts used VISA interbank rate and applied 0% commission on worldwide transactions (and both of the debit cards applied no fee on cash withdrawals).

The reason I point this out, is that for a long time I've suspected that the interbank rate set by Mastercard is, more often than not, slightly worse than VISA for non EU/US transactions (or other widely traded currency pairs). A long time ago, I attempted to quantify this by spending on circa ten UK issued cards in one day. However, as noted elsewhere, it is difficult to compare banking institutions because transactions are typically not posted to the same day across institutions. Moreover, the actual date of conversion applied is not mentioned on many card statements.

Because of Nationwide's change in policy in November, I shifted most of my UK banking to Norwich and Peterborough. I can confirm that their VISA debit card uses the interbank rate and, so far (since early December), I have found to be a good replacement for the Nationwide debit card. However, my gut feeling is that the N&P is just fishing to significantly increase its customer base, and being cynical, I suspect the building society will probably be taken over sooner this year rather than later.

To date, I have no experience of other options discussed (Metro Bank, Clarity, Santander Zero). Another option, which I do not think has been mentioned yet, is the LTSB Airmiles AMEX card. I use this as my main FX card where possible.

The LTSB AMEX card DOES impose a currency conversion fee of 2.75%, but I often find that the AMEX interbank rate is more competitive than VISA (especially for currencies weighted against the dollar). Irrelevant of that, the Airmiles AMEX card 'gives' 1 airmile per £5 of foreign currency transactions. I value one airmile (issued by Airmiles) as being worth at least 15p (on this scale, 750 airmiles are valued at £112.50 - not unreasonable). If that is the case, then for every complete £10 spent on the LTSB AMEX card, although a fee of 2.75% is added, airmiles to the effective value of 3% are yielded (I pay a £60 annual fee and receive 1.25 miles per £5 , which is an effective yield of 3.75% - circa 1% cashback on non-UK spending!). Downsides: only worthwhile if Airmiles are of value to a user; Amex is not as widely accepted as the VISA or MC.

Converting Euros to Sterling: the way I do this is via First Direct and KBC in Belgium. (a non-resident's account with KBC can be opened relatively easily by taxpayers in UK) . First Direct do not impose any fees on incoming SEPA payments; KBC do not impose any fees on outgoing payments to other countries in SEPA area. First Direct claim not to impose any currency conversion fees: in practice, I find the rate FD apply is always about 1% lower than the VISA interbank rate on any given day - however I suspect this is just due to the time of day FD process the transaction. To shift low-value transactions from euros to sterling, 1% is a small cost to pay in my opinion!

(Interestingly, it takes only one working day to get funds from KBC in Brussels to First Direct in Leeds via SEPA system, yet still takes four days to get funds from Leeds to Norwich via BACS!)

Sorry for the long (virgin) post!