Most efficient way of extracting cash abroad

Biggles

missile wrote: »

Capital1 give the Master card business exchange rate.

Capital One charge the usual 2.75% exchange rate loading.
http://www.capitalone.co.uk/creditcards/world-mastercard.jsf

missile

cepheus wrote: »

[SIZE=-1]You quote 1.149 on the 23rd February. [/SIZE]
These are Mid prices


Taking the 1.18217 as the correct mid price figure for your date this implies a spread of 1.149/1.215 around 5.7%

This is the sort of spread I would expect from a card, far better than a bank cash but hardly trading account level. See a real spread here on the right demo before the suits have added on their 5.6% in this case

Without the Buy and Sell price the true costs are completely opaque.

Edit

Iv'e searched around for business exchange rates, these are from Nat west Can anyone find the buy and sell better than this (around 5%)?

http://www.natwest.com/tools/commercial/currency_rates/rates.asp

Seems you know all the answers, beats me why you asked the question?

missile

Biggles wrote: »

Capital One charge the usual 2.75% exchange rate loading.
http://www.capitalone.co.uk/creditcards/world-mastercard.jsf

As you say there is a charge and on the example I gave, I was charged approx £2.01 to use my credit card. I get 1% refund on purchases so true cost was approx £1.26. I really can't get too excited about that.

stilltheone

Infidel wrote: »

I'll certainly look into that. Has anyone here used it? Can you draw cash out from ATM's or do you have to use it like a [STRIKE]credit card[/STRIKE] in shops?

Debit card. Can be used for spending or for cash withdrawals.

benjus

The post above about Santander zero cards only being free in Santander cash machines is wrong. Santander Zero credit cards are free to use in any cash machine in any country (excluding any charges imposed by the cash machine itself). Santander will charge interest on cash withdrawals from the date of the withdrawal - however, if you can access online banking, they do accept Faster Payments into the credit card account and payments are credited very quickly.

So it's definitely not a bad way of getting cash abroad - although a Metro Bank debit card is still better for cash withdrawals due to the interest on the Santander Zero. Both are equally good for purchases.

cepheus

missile wrote: »

Seems you know all the answers, beats me why you asked the question?

I really had no idea what sort of a 'spread' credit cards charge. You gave me a quoted price which could be compared with the market for the day, but it relies on various assumptions.

Incidentally, you only pay half of that spread with a credit card since you never have any money left over on your return to change back, as you do with cash. That is one big advantage.

As far as I can gather, the best rates for small amounts are cash based exchanges in London such as Waterloo station. (£1 with get you 1.13 € today, the mid market price is showing £1=1.141 € at the moment) Not worth travelling to London though.

Seems I will end up using Santander/Nationwide cards mainly and get a small amount of cash from Tesco in case the card doesn't work.

cepheus

benjus wrote: »

The post above about Santander zero cards only being free in Santander cash machines is wrong. Santander Zero credit cards are free to use in any cash machine in any country (excluding any charges imposed by the cash machine itself). Santander will charge interest on cash withdrawals from the date of the withdrawal - however, if you can access online banking, they do accept Faster Payments into the credit card account and payments are credited very quickly.

So it's definitely not a bad way of getting cash abroad - although a Metro Bank debit card is still better for cash withdrawals due to the interest on the Santander Zero. Both are equally good for purchases.

If you can pay it back on the same day it should be zero interest, but this may accidentally credit the card unless payment is immediate which goes against the T&C. Two days interest on £100 is only 12 pence so I guess its worth waiting, all the real cost is all in the 'hidden' spread.

missile

When I need to spend larger amounts, I transfer from my UK account to my spanish account Barclays.es.

FYI: £500.00 transfered on 20.01.2011 > 593.78€ which is slightly better rate than quoted here http://www.x-rates.com/d/EUR/GBP/data120.html

benjus

Looking at those figures from before, I see that the transaction was posted on the 24th, when the rate was 1.174674. Comparing that with the 1.1497399 gives a 2.17% spread. Also, the rate on the 25th was 1.16918, so if the rate was already heading down when the transaction was posted it may be a narrower spread (I can only see average rates for the whole day where I'm looking).

Obviously 1.5 - 2% is still higher than one might expect the Mastercard spread to be, but still better than you're likely to get with any other method.

ManAtHome

Some numbers from Halifax Clarity - euro rates (bracketed rates from Oanda Interbank):
27/01 - 1.16 (1.1573)
02/02 - 1.17 (1.1698)
05/02 - 1.18 (1.1838)

Bit of rounding from Halifax - when I used the Nationwide Flex, rates were always to 4 decimal places - looks like some you win, some you lose (no complaints with Clarity rates or service though).