Best place to exchange foreign currency 21 December 2019 at 12:00PM in Flights, Currency & Car Hire 9 replies 1.1K views

mrsyardbroom

I've been sent some foreign currency for Christmas but I don't know which is the best place to exchange it. My local Post Office said they couldn't do it and they thought the bank probably couldn't either. The cash is in Australian dollars and Euros.

Voyager2002

Firstly, if you or a friend are likely to visit Euro-land or Australia soon then exchange with your friend or spend them there. Failing that, if the sums are modest then M & S is likely to be more helpful than your post office.

eDicky

https://travelmoney.moneysavingexpert.com/buy-back

mrsyardbroom

I'm not going abroad. I was hoping there would be somewhere local where I could just walk in and exchange it.

mrsyardbroom

A notice has just come up on the screen saying thank you for reporting. I can only think I've accidentally touched the touch pad too hard on the laptop I'm using. I haven't reported anyone!

J_B

mrsyardbroom wrote: »

I'm not going abroad. I was hoping there would be somewhere local where I could just walk in and exchange it.

Guessing where you live, I'd say there was a shop that could help about three streets away! :rotfl:



Where is likely to be "local"?

benjus

mrsyardbroom wrote: »

I'm not going abroad. I was hoping there would be somewhere local where I could just walk in and exchange it.

I'd have thought that larger Post Office branches would be able to exchange it, if you can put up with the rotten exchange rates at the PO.

TheShape

mrsyardbroom wrote: »

I've been sent some foreign currency for Christmas .....

mrsyardbroom wrote: »

I'm not going abroad....

Not a great Christmas present then.

If you're not planning a trip or not a regular traveller why would someone gift you foreign currency?

Pollycat

TheShape wrote: »

Not a great Christmas present then.

If you're not planning a trip or not a regular traveller why would someone gift you foreign currency?

I assumed it had been sent from someone - possibly 2 different people - living abroad who didn't want to incur exchange costs themselves.

A friend of mine had a sister in law living in USA who used to send the kids Christmas and birthday money in US $.
By the time she'd paid the commission to get it exchanged, it wasn't worth much at all.

mrsyardbroom wrote: »

A notice has just come up on the screen saying thank you for reporting. I can only think I've accidentally touched the touch pad too hard on the laptop I'm using. I haven't reported anyone!

You may have hit the :spam: button on one of the replies by mistake.

You can undo this by clicking on the button again.
You can tell which post it is as it will say 'not :spam:' or something like that.

TheShape

TheShape wrote: »

Not a great Christmas present then.

If you're not planning a trip or not a regular traveller why would someone gift you foreign currency?

Pollycat wrote: »

I assumed it had been sent from someone - possibly 2 different people - living abroad who didn't want to incur exchange costs themselves.

I assumed the same.

Still a rubbish way of gifting money as the recipient will both incur the cost of exchange out of the value of the gift anyway and has the bother of doing so. If you wanted to gift someone X value of Australian Dollars, just gift that value minus the exchange fee.

Also, cash sent in the mail?