Going to Paris for Two Days (overnight stay) - Should I Get Euros Cash?

anotheruser

I'm heading out to Paris on a Tuesday, staying overnight and coming back on the Wednesday.

Not looking to spend loads of money, probably just on food and metro tickets, probably some souvenirs. Hotel is all paid for.

I have a Halifax Clarity card and will inform them I am heading overseas but should I grab some Euros anyway?
I don't plan on returning any time particularly soon but would probably keep any unused Euros for another trip but I don't really want to get any now if there's no real need.

Cash or Cards only?

benjus

No, don't get cash before you go.

Alan_Bowen

For a 24 hour stay I would get cash, I had real problems trying to buy metro tickets with any card, and I had plenty to chose from and frankly if you take a 100 Euros, you can't spend more. By all means have a card for backup but such a short stay, cash is king

Doshwaster

If you do want a handful of cash then just stick your Clarity card into the first cash machine you see. You'll get a better rate than buying it here. Just remember to pay it off as soon as you can rather than waiting for the statement. Clear the balance within a week and you'll only pay pennies in interest.

anotheruser

It gets paid off by DD automatically.
Would I have to pay money before then?

benjus

Alan_Bowen wrote: »

For a 24 hour stay I would get cash, I had real problems trying to buy metro tickets with any card, and I had plenty to chose from and frankly if you take a 100 Euros, you can't spend more. By all means have a card for backup but such a short stay, cash is king

By all means get cash, just do it when you arrive, using the Clarity card.

It gets paid off by DD automatically.
Would I have to pay money before then?

Yes, if you want to keep interest charges to a minimum. This is because interest on cash withdrawals is charged immediately (unlike purchases, which have an interest-free period).

Doshwaster

anotheruser wrote: »

It gets paid off by DD automatically.
Would I have to pay money before then?

Interest on cash withdrawls is charged daily so the sooner you pay it off the less you pay. However, if you are only taking out €50 or so then the difference will be pennies.

At 12.9% the interest is about 1% per month so that €50 will cost you about 50p in interest if you clear the balance by direct debit (depending on when the statement date is). If you manually pay it off within a week then you'd be looking at 10-15p instead. Maybe not an amount to get worried about but if you were withdrawing €1000 then it starts to become a significant difference.

anotheruser

Yeah, we wouldn't be drawing out much at all.

If I have other payments on the card, how does it know that I want the money I pay off to pay off the cash?

Luckily, there should be no other payments on the card so I can just clear the balance off as soon as I see it online, but for future reference...

benjus

anotheruser wrote: »

If I have other payments on the card, how does it know that I want the money I pay off to pay off the cash?

Have a look at the T&C with the card - it should give you a list of the order in which payments are applied to different types of balance on the card.

Make sure the cash withdrawals have actually appeared on the statement (not just as pending transactions) before the payment hits the card, as pending transactions do not count when allocating payments.

slinga

Even though I informed Clarity I would be overseas in Spain and France I was still unable to withdraw cash on one holiday we took.
Luckily we had taken money with us as well.
The Clarity card worked fine in Supermarkets and restaurants just not in cash dispensers.

anotheruser

Just as a little closure; I did get some cash out and was charged 1p interest.

Thanks for the tip!