Change cash to cover exchange rate drop?

Jrwithington

Hi all,

I'm travelling to Boston for a week on 5th September. With the benefit of hindsight I would have changed a load of spending money to dollars on 22nd June, but didn't predict the referendum going the way it did. Obviously the value of the £ has tanked since then, and then looks like it's wobbling again after the interest rate cut yesterday.

I have a Halifax Clarity card I was planning on using for all my spending out there. However, I'm considering changing some cash into dollars beforehand to cover my back in case the ££ tanks any further.

Would you think that would be sensible considering the current fragility of the £, or would any savings be off-set by the generally worse rates you get when exchanging cash compared to a specialist card?

I've only just got the Clarity card and have never used it, so am not totally clued up on just how much it may save me!

Thanks in advance!

Voyager2002

Do you have good reason to believe that the pound will "tank" any further? If so, you could avoid the costs of holding foreign currency in cash by using a service such as xe.com to use your online bank account to buy online dollars, and then exchanging them back to pounds when you are ready to spend them. Do be aware that if you go down this road and you are wrong, you are likely to lose money.

Otherwise, as you said the various costs of getting cash and holding it are likely to outweigh anything you gain on exchange rate changes.

Jrwithington

Thanks for the reply.

Just checked actually, I was thinking that the next MPC meeting was that week we are away, and a further drop to 0% would see the pound drop another chunk. However, just double checked and the MPC thing isn't til later on in September so shouldn't be an issue.

Bit of a waste of a thread really, but thanks for your info all the same! I'll just stick with the Clarity and hope that things stay stable or maybe even improve against the $ in the next few weeks!