Taking large amounts of cash abroad

Gardenercook

Hello,

My son is due to go out to Paris this weekend for a 6-month stint as part of his university course. We're in discussion with a private individual to sub-let their apartment for 6 months but she's asked for a 1400 Euro deposit up front. Given that I really don't want to carry that much cash out with me, what's the best way to get hold of such amounts once I'm there? Neither my credit nor debit cards (Nationwide) will let me take out that much from an ATM in one go. I was wondering about taking traveller's cheques (possibly bought using my M&S credit card? Don't think they charge a cash advance for that) but wondered if anyone had any better ideas for a safe and economical way to do this?

Thanks

Gloomendoom

Who do you bank with? Have you considers a bank draft in euros?

NiftyDigits

Cash Passport Globe allows you to take £600 every 24 hours.

You can take one out in your name and perhaps another in your son's name.
That will allow you to take the equivalent of up to £1200 per day at a cost of only 1.49% off the Mastercard wholesale rate.

NiftyDigits

Gloomendoom wrote: »

Who do you bank with? Have you considers a bank draft in euros?

At what likely exchange rate?

Voyager2002

Do you have the landlord's bank account details? If so, I would use a service like Custom House (https://www.xe.com) to pay the required sum in Euro directly into her/his account.

Gardenercook

I have accounts with First Direct, Barclays, Nationwide and NatWest. Until we've actually seen the apartment we won't know for sure that we want to take it, or that she's happy to accept us, so I thought cash would be most flexible. I assume a bank draft is to a named individual? I'm hoping that she'll accept some in cash and I can transfer the remainder when I get home. I think it will cost me £9 to transfer it to a French bank account from First Direct and they usually do a decent exchange rate for incoming euro payments, so I'm hoping they will the other way round too. However, I won't know that for sure until I've met the landlady and she's happy with us! All very confusing....

Gardenercook

Voyager2002 wrote: »

Do you have the landlord's bank account details? If so, I would use a service like Custom House to pay the required sum in Euro directly into her/his account.

That's interesting, I hadn't heard of this before. Would this be cheaper or quicker than just asking my own bank (First Direct) to do it, do you think? FD charge £9 if I remember rightly.

Gardenercook

NiftyDigits wrote: »

allows you to take £600 every 24 hours.

You can take one out in your name and perhaps another in your son's name.
That will allow you to take the equivalent of up to £1200 per day at a cost of only 1.49% off the Mastercard wholesale rate.

... unfortunately we're leaving tomorrow so it's probably too late to apply for one of these now. The accommodation offer has only been confirmed this week hence why I'm so late trying to make arrangements.

SaveTheEuro

If you like the flat why don't you offer her a smaller deposit of €300 cash immediately with the rest put into her bank account in the following few days?

Gardenercook

SaveTheEuro wrote: »

If you like the flat why don't you offer her a smaller deposit of €300 cash immediately with the rest put into her bank account in the following few days?

Yes, that's what I'm hoping we can do - fingers crossed!

WelshSun

Gardenercook wrote: »

... unfortunately we're leaving tomorrow so it's probably too late to apply for one of these now. The accommodation offer has only been confirmed this week hence why I'm so late trying to make arrangements.

You can pick them up from most airports with just four hours notice.

Go to the Travelex website, and make sure you select collect at airport.