Currency for Amsterdam

gooeylouii

Hey!

Myself and a friend are travelling to Amsterdam in two weeks as a last minute thing for just over a week. We've sorted flights and hostel deposits etc but now are faced with the money situation.

We're going to be taking around 700GBP between us so I'm obviously wary of carrying round 930/950EUR (depending which rate you use) in cash, especially given the fact we're going to be going from hostel to hostel to save money. We're probably going to just be spending in cash during the holiday.

For this reason, I looked into prepaid cards. I had looked at the FairFX prepaid card but the 1.40ATM fee was unappealing. The Ukash prepaid card seemed like an alternative but after looking into the forums on here and finding a great deal of negative reviews along with discussion of fee's I hadn't seen advertised on the website I'm concerned it might not be the best.

We're both students so travel credit cards are out of the question. And the only other thing I can think of is travellers cheques, but this seems abit outdated and I don't fancy paying fee's.

Are we just going to have to suck up the ATM charge? or possibly go with a prepaid card vendor that's more reputable and has no charges but a less attractive exchange rate?

Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Louis

Running_On_Empty

We use fairfx and not had any problems with them.

jonesMUFCforever

How long are you staying there?
If you have that amount of cash I would not stay at a hostel unless they offered a safe for cash and belongings.

Voyager2002

Are you near London?

Simple solution: visit a branch of Metro Bank and get an account with a fee-free ATM card handed to you before you leave.

benjus

If you do go down the Prepaid card route, consider Kalixa Pay instead. It does have an ATM fee, but unlike the FairFX EUR card it charges nothing for converting from GBP to EUR.

gooeylouii

Thanks everyone for your replies.

We're staying in a number of hostels over 8 nights, all of which have luggage storage and some have secure holding for belongings. It's very much a student getaway and we won't be bringing anything of value other than phone etc that we'll have on our person.

I'm based in the North of England so Metro Bank might not be viable, though it does seem a very good route had I been able to pursue it.

I think the ATM fee was the issue as we're going to be taking cash out every day and spending that, as opposed to carrying cash round which doesn't seem very sensible given our situation.

I'll have a look into Kalixa.

[Deleted User]

gooeylouii wrote: »

Thanks everyone for your replies.

We're staying in a number of hostels over 8 nights, all of which have luggage storage and some have secure holding for belongings. It's very much a student getaway and we won't be bringing anything of value other than phone etc that we'll have on our person.

I'm based in the North of England so Metro Bank might not be viable, though it does seem a very good route had I been able to pursue it.

I think the ATM fee was the issue as we're going to be taking cash out every day and spending that, as opposed to carrying cash round which doesn't seem very sensible given our situation.

I'll have a look into Kalixa.

€1000 is 20 x €50 or ten each to carry around.
10 !
Keep some in your wallet and the rest under the instep in your shoe.
Getting new ATM cards seems an awful lot of hassle for such a small amount or maybe students aren't quite as confident as I remember them.

gooeylouii

Deleted_User wrote: »

€1000 is 20 x €50 or ten each to carry around.
10 !
Keep some in your wallet and the rest under the instep in your shoe.
Getting new ATM cards seems an awful lot of hassle for such a small amount or maybe students aren't quite as confident as I remember them.

The problem is my friend I'm going with in notorious for losing, well, everything, on a constant basis. I think I just wanted to minimise the risk as much as possible but it looks like we're probably just going to get cash as I don't fancy paying fees.

eDicky

gooeylouii wrote: »

I'm based in the North of England so Metro Bank might not be viable, though it does seem a very good route had I been able to pursue it.

So if you happen to live in the operating area of Cumberland Building Society, ie Cumbria, Lancashire and Dumfries & Galloway, you can try for one of their accounts which includes a debit card with totally fee-free foreign use worldwide.

zagfles

gooeylouii wrote: »

The problem is my friend I'm going with in notorious for losing, well, everything, on a constant basis. I think I just wanted to minimise the risk as much as possible but it looks like we're probably just going to get cash as I don't fancy paying fees.

You have a friend who loses everything and you want to take £700 cash??

And anyway, do you really think you can get cash without "paying fees"? The interbank rate is 1.375, unless you can get cash for that rate, you're paying fees, just hidden in the rate.

I believe the Kalixa uses the Mastercard rate which is pretty much interbank, current rate is 1.378 https://www.mastercard.com/global/currencyconversion/index.html

You pay an ATM fee, but as long as you don't withdraw small amounts it's likely to be less than the fee you get charged for changing cash. And for spending there is no fee.

gooeylouii

I realise there are always going to be fee's somewhere that's why I looked into the prepaid cards and all the options available to find the best one, as cash exchange rates don't seem to go above 1.34/5.

Thanks for all your help everyone I think the best option for us as it stands is to get a Kalixa card as the money used in ATM fee's will probably leave me with what I would of started with had I changed it into cash. Without the worry of losing it, or it getting stolen.