Spending Overseas: The cheapest way to pay Article Discussion Area

Born2Save_3

You can withdraw £600 over 2 days - the withdrawal limit is £300 per day I think ? b est check with Nationwide.

Another way is to open a local bank account and then in the local bank ask to do a transfer to your account from your visa debit card - this way you can transfer large amounts, not pay a transfer fee and benefit from close to interbank transfer fees.

I would be very interested to hear from other people on this method.

However this thread seems to be more asking questions than providing answers - so I will keep it that way... Well maybe I'll provide a little info...

chrisstiles wrote: »

Hi -

I'm going to need to pay for something in Lithuania - a single purchase of around 600 pounds.

I'd normally load up my Nationwide Card when travelling and then withdraw cash abroad - however in this case I think I'm going to run into the maximum value of cash I can withdraw in a single day.

Short of withdrawing this money over a few days - is there any other way that might be an efficient way of converting pounds into the local currency?

Regards,

Born2Save_3

I went to germany last week and as an experiment I withdrew Euros using my Nationwide Visa Debit Card (Blue) and then my Nationwide Cirrus Cash Card (Red). I did this so I could compare the exchange rates given as Visa has there own rates and Cirrus uses Mastercard's rates. Well here is the results :

Blue card :
9/5/08 50 Euros cost £39.44 = exchange rate of £1 GBP = 1.26774 Euros

Red card
9/5/08 10 Euros cost £7.86 - exchange rate of £1 GBP = 1.27226 Euros

Of course it all depends on when the exchange was actually done and I dont have that information easily. I could ask Nationwide, but from past experience the result has been !!!!!!, to put it mildly and they take a LONG time over it !

Previously, I have believed that Visa provided better rates than Mastercard, however these results seem to contradict that. All I can suggest at the moment is that further experiments need to be done and results posted here.

Certainly, before with Thailand, Visa used the on-shore rate and Mastercard the off-shore rate, wich was significantly worse. However, the Thai currency controls, I believe, have been lifted but I have no recent data to compare Visa and Mastercard rates for Thai Baht.

I have not previously performed any comparison of the nationwide cards on withdrawing Euros.

Comments please ? (or just more questions - There must be some people reading this thread that can reply...)

Crabman

Hi Born2Save,

You can check VISA's current exchange rate here, however I'm not aware of a similar site for Mastercard.

If anyone knows of a Mastercard site please post here so we can add it into the Euro Currency & US Currency Q&A threads

bexsa

I'm going travelling for just over 3 months-USA,NZ,Oz,Fiji,Bali & Singapore. I am reluctant to get a credit card, i currently have an HSBC debit card and a Natwest debit card. I have had a look at prepaid cards-does anyone know if these can be used for car rental etc and are they worth getting?Am i going to get charged loads for taking out money and paying on debit cards whilst im away? i'm a complete novice at all things money-related so would appreciate some ( simple) advice!

meester

I don't think you should be recommending the Abbey Zero card at all.

If you take money out of an ATM from a credit card, interest is charged from day 1. It gets quite nasty on the bill as well, because interest is accruing till you pay it off.

I wouldn't say the Abbey Zero card is better than the Nationwide card at all; they might be as good as each other, but that is the best you can say. Just because Abbey Zero has free withdrawals doesn't mean it's worth having.

tank121

If i use my Nationwide Visa Debit card in Menorca is there a local charge applied for withdrawing money from an ATM machine ?

I will probably be withdrawing up to £1,000 over 2 weeks

The_Wall_2

Hi I'm going to Dubai and Thailand for 3 weeks and have around £2000 saved up for the trip. Am I best getting a Nationwide account then and using that card for withdrawals and purchases or getting the Nationwide and the Abbey card and use the abbey card for purchases? As I'm going to be in Thailand for the majority and never been before I presume I will need to take cash out to cover me when I'm in the remote areas? Any advice would be much appreciated

dzug1

tank121 wrote: »

If i use my Nationwide Visa Debit card in Menorca is there a local charge applied for withdrawing money from an ATM machine ?

I will probably be withdrawing up to £1,000 over 2 weeks

Not from a bank machine. If you use the equivalent of a convenience store or petrol station one then possibly.

dzug1

Born2Save wrote: »

I went to germany last week and as an experiment I withdrew Euros using my Nationwide Visa Debit Card (Blue) and then my Nationwide Cirrus Cash Card (Red). I did this so I could compare the exchange rates given as Visa has there own rates and Cirrus uses Mastercard's rates. Well here is the results :

Blue card :
9/5/08 50 Euros cost £39.44 = exchange rate of £1 GBP = 1.26774 Euros

Red card
9/5/08 10 Euros cost £7.86 - exchange rate of £1 GBP = 1.27226 Euros

Of course it all depends on when the exchange was actually done and I dont have that information easily. I could ask Nationwide, but from past experience the result has been !!!!!!, to put it mildly and they take a LONG time over it !

Previously, I have believed that Visa provided better rates than Mastercard, however these results seem to contradict that. All I can suggest at the moment is that further experiments need to be done and results posted here.

Certainly, before with Thailand, Visa used the on-shore rate and Mastercard the off-shore rate, wich was significantly worse. However, the Thai currency controls, I believe, have been lifted but I have no recent data to compare Visa and Mastercard rates for Thai Baht.

I have not previously performed any comparison of the nationwide cards on withdrawing Euros.

Comments please ? (or just more questions - There must be some people reading this thread that can reply...)

Some fairly random thoughts:

I think the exchange is done live when you hit the confirm button. ICBW though. It is dynamic throughout the day, so on a bad day your experience would not be unusual.

I've also noticed that smaller transactions sometimes attract a slightly worse exchange rate than larger ones on the same day - same card. Maybe there's an element of fixed fee in Visa/Mastercard's cut. So for a proper comparison take the same amount from the two cards as close in time as possible.

Agree it's not worth asking Nationwide - they don't have easy access to this information - they don't do the transaction themselves, just take the V/MC results.

kaydee

Does anyone have any experience of these prepay travel cash cards?
The one mentioned in the post above fairfx.com looks very interesting, and there is a similar product from ICE. These both look good compared to the offerings from traditional banking institutions!
I know that Nationwide are best for debit and credit abroad - and I have those myself!
I am looking for a way of making sure my 15 year old has access to money on a 2 week school trip abroad without the risk of carrying all his cash around all the time.
Any other alternatives gratefully received!