cash withdrawals when travelling abroad

pura_vida

For cash withdrawals abroad, which one would pick: Nationwide FlexPlus debit card or Halifax Clarity credit card?

In the past I've always used Halifax Clarity for both purchases and cash withdrawals when travelling overseas, but I want to avoid cash advances on credit cards...

So I will continue to use Halifax Clarity for purchases, but for cash withdrawals maybe Nationwide FlexPlus is a good choice? As their website says no "Non-Sterling Transaction Fee" and no "Non-Sterling Cash Fee" for cash withdrawals abroad.

Does anyone know what exchange rate does Nationwide use? Is it better/worse than the one used by Halifax Clarity, or perhaps the difference is negligible for such small amounts? I rarely exceed £1000 in cash withdrawals while abroad.

AlexMac

I too have both and never thought to use the Clarity for cash as I assumed (possibly incorrectly?) that this would incur inteterest.

My Nationwide Flexplus fees table says it's fee-free (unlike their non premium accounts which charge 2.42% plus £1) and as they use the Commercial Exchange Rate I am always really happy with the cost.

We tried comparing the Flexplus with our Natwest debit card last Spring purely to see how they charged us; took 250 Euros, simultaneously (well, one after the other) from the same Spanish mainstream Bank ATM... and the Natwest was nearly £10 worse on the trade when we got home and compared statements!

So we won't do that again; and although the FlexPlus costs £13 per month fee, its many benefits and insurances (travel, phones...), EU vehicle recovery and access to other better Regular Saver rates more than add up to the £156 p.a. cost.


As always, withdraw in Euros and don't take the EU Bank's Sterling conversion offer.

But how does Clarity charge for cash Euro withdrwalas out of intetetst?

Gloomendoom

The Clarity does incur interest when used for cash withdrawals but it amounts to pennies as long as you pay off promptly.

For example, two of us spent a month in Australia using a Clarity for cash and it cost us 80p in interest.

Have now switched to using a Starling Bank debit card for cash. It would probably be good option for the OP too.

bagand96

If you have a Flexplus account already then you may as well use the debit card for your cash withdrawals, as the Clarity will incur interest (although as pointed out that will be pennies).

Nationwide uses the Visa conversion rate as it's a Visa card. Clarity uses the Mastercard rate. Although they won't be exactly the same, they usually very similar.

As en example, €100 withdrawn yesterday (25/10) would cost you:

Visa £88.51 (€1 = £0.8851045751)
Mastercard £88.82 (€1 = £0.888173)

Gloomendoom

I have also found that some foreign ATMs are fussy over the flavour of card, so having both visa and MasterCard options isn't such a bad idea.

londoninvestor

bagand96 wrote: »

Nationwide uses the Visa conversion rate as it's a Visa card. Clarity uses the Mastercard rate. Although they won't be exactly the same, they usually very similar.

As en example, €100 withdrawn yesterday (25/10) would cost you:

Visa £88.51 (€1 = £0.8851045751)
Mastercard £88.82 (€1 = £0.888173)

It's worth noting that there is effectively a fee embedded in these.

So yesterday, if you were converting the other way (say you were a French visitor using your card in the UK):
£88.51 converted with Visa would cost you €100.40
£88.82 converted with Mastercard would cost you €100.55

i.e. Visa is charging a spread of 0.4% and Mastercard a spread of 0.55%. It makes sense to think of that as a fee of 0.2% (for Visa) or 0.275% (for Mastercard) charged to customers in both directions. [The actual amount will be a bit different every day, and a bit different per currency.]

That doesn't put me off using Clarity, Nationwide etc - but it is worth bearing in mind when comparing with Revolut and Transferwise, who quote their FX fees in terms of a spread to the interbank rate.