Turkish Lira - Should I buy?

Westin

zagfles wrote: »

Better than what, GBP, or Lira? When I was there they liked GBP as much as other major currencies, and they did seem to prefer GBP to Lira.

If you have some EUR/USD left over from previous trips then it'd certainly be worth taking them, but I very much doubt it'd be worthwhile to buy Euros or USD here to spend in Turkey, when you account for what you'll lose in the conversion when you buy here.

....Lira....

jamesbrownontheroad

I've been shopping for some Lira this week and found a couple of retailers are out of stock.

The nearest TUI Store can get some in 48 hours, but I noticed a couple of online retailers have also removed it from their online calculators, suggesting a lack of stock.

Debenhams, meanwhile, continues to offer almost the same exchange rate as when I bought some lira about 3 weeks ago. Perhaps capitalising on those rushing to buy without checking the exchange rate?

maman

We were in Turkey back in June /July. Excellent value as at the time it was approx 6 TL to the pound compared with 4 last year. Now it's going through the roof!

We've been regular visitors to Turkey and remember when inflation was rampant before. That was when they removed all the 0000s from the currency.

From those days we're still in the habit of taking stirling and changing money daily. The local shops and cafes do good rates with no commission. I'm sure you'll do well with the card at banks or ATMs but whichever I think changing money by the day is best.

zagfles

jamesbrownontheroad wrote: »

I've been shopping for some Lira this week and found a couple of retailers are out of stock.

The nearest TUI Store can get some in 48 hours, but I noticed a couple of online retailers have also removed it from their online calculators, suggesting a lack of stock.

Debenhams, meanwhile, continues to offer almost the same exchange rate as when I bought some lira about 3 weeks ago. Perhaps capitalising on those rushing to buy without checking the exchange rate?

Why wouldn't they capitalise on mugs who buy Lira in the UK

zagfles

maman wrote: »

We were in Turkey back in June /July. Excellent value as at the time it was approx 6 TL to the pound compared with 4 last year. Now it's going through the roof!

We've been regular visitors to Turkey and remember when inflation was rampant before. That was when they removed all the 0000s from the currency.

From those days we're still in the habit of taking stirling and changing money daily. The local shops and cafes do good rates with no commission. I'm sure you'll do well with the card at banks or ATMs but whichever I think changing money by the day is best.

Yes I remember those days - about 200,000 to the £, I remember having £5,000,000 notes:rotfl:Inflation about 80%. Nearly everywhere took GBP, and it was actually better value to pay in GBP than Lira, since all the retailers wanted a currency which wouldn't devalue by the time they'd banked it!