Gibraltar - when is a quid not a quid? (90p in fact)

peterbaker

I was kicking my heals in the baggage reclaim of Stansted the other day when I found myself querying why the Travelex currency exchange board suggested that if I wanted to transact my spare Gibraltar pounds with them, they would first sell them to me at about 1.11 and buy them at about 0.90.

As they were not very busy, I asked if it really meant that I would get about 90p for a Gibraltar quid?

Apparently it did! Gibraltar accepts UK quids, but UK doesn't accept Gibraltar quids.

I somehow find that hilarious, bearing in mind that in Gibraltar I can draw out twenty quid (albeit a Gibraltar £20 note) with my Connect card from the Barclays cash machine without incurring a VISA 2.75% commission (If I remember rightly), and then ask a policeman in a proper bobby's helmet where I can get the best Roast Beef and Yorkshire pud for 2+2 kids and change from the twenty quid and he'll easily tell me!

Does anyone really sell their Gibraltar pounds to Travelex when they get back for 90p?

mrbadexample

Don't forget that a Gibraltar £1 coin is the same size & weight as a "normal" £1, so machines don't know the difference, banks won't notice them in bags of £1 coins, shopkeepers and customers alike won't notice...

"if it looks like a quid, and feels like a quid, it's a quid" sorta thing.

Every now and then one turns up in my change, along with Channel Islands quids and IOM quids. They all spend the same...

dzug

If they are in a stack, they are very easy to tell from £UK - they have no writing round the edge, just plain milling.

ukdoctor

I once accidentally used an isle of man pound coin to pay for a tube ticket. I had coins on me but I was a bit confused about the station i needed to travel to.The ticket clerk said that he couldnt issue the ticket as it was a 'fake coin'. I walked over to the ticket machine and used the same set of coins to buy a ticket :-).

ukdoctor

I think that you should be able to exchange Gibraltar pounds to Uk pounds without any charge at banks. I have done that with Isle of man pounds

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibraltar_pound

Polotoo

I didn't know they had different quids! Seems silly to change them if you can still spend them? Are they classed as legal tender here then?

Remember visiting Gibraltar as a child, and my dad convinced my brother and I that as it was british, it would be english weather - it was sooooooo hot in Spain we were really excited that it would be cold and might even rain!

Can remember being very disappointed when we got there, and my dad stills laughs at us now for believing him!

budgetflyer

I suppose Travelex should just spend a £million on rent at Stansted Airport, employ staff 18 hours a day just to give you exactly 1Gib £ for a UK£ and 1UK£ back for a Gib one once youve had your jolly holly ?

peterbaker

budgetflyer wrote: »

I suppose Travelex should just spend a £million on rent at Stansted Airport, employ staff 18 hours a day just to give you exactly 1Gib £ for a UK£ and 1UK£ back for a Gib one once youve had your jolly holly ?

Yo, sarcasm, but I suppose that passes for wit in 2007, eh?

It seems that the justification of any business practice thesedays is along the lines of 'if someone has set up a device for extracting money from wallets then it must be okay because it pleases the profit God'?

I notice you didn't query why punters might need to lose 10% on buying Gib pounds at Travelex in the first place? I guess in your book budgetflyer, that's okay too, because if the suckers don't know they could spend their UK£ just as easily in Gib, then they are fair prey to anyone who is happy to take their money and convert it unnecessarily for a 10% fee.

mrbadexample

dzug wrote: »

If they are in a stack, they are very easy to tell from £UK - they have no writing round the edge, just plain milling.

Correct....but who looks at / knows about the milling? Not many of us. I've given pound coins back to cashiers when they're obvious fakes: having "Pleidiol Wyf I'm Gwlad" (Welsh: "True am I to my country") on the edge of a coin with the Scottish thistle (should be "Nemo me impune lacessit" - "No-one provokes me with impunity"). Clearly a cut 'n' shut.

They have no idea what I'm on about. :rotfl: