Santander Mastercard withdrawals abroad

patndave

We have been in Spain for four years and use our Santander visa debit card at Santander atm's without any charges for withdrawing euros.  We always selected without conversion.  My partner`s card for the same account expired and she was sent a Mastercard.  The first withdrawals came with charges of around 15 pounds for 300 euros.  We contacted Santander in the UK and they refunded the charges and advised us to withdraw 'with conversion' to sterling.  Charges stopped but we suddenly noticed that if I withdraw 300 euros on my old visa debit card it appears as 267 pounds on our account but if my partner withdraws the same amount the cost is 280.  We have tried to query this with Santander but they seem oblivious to our problem and keep telling my partner to draw in sterling.  Has anybody else experienced this?

born_again

Mastercard & Visa use different conversion rates. Which you can check on their (Mastercard/Visa) website. So it is not a Santander issue.
But given you are living in Spain, why have you not got a Spanish bank account?

gt94sss2

By choosing the "with conversion" option, the Spanish ATM sets the exchange rate and it's a lot worse than doing it without conversion (when you use the wholesale visa/MasterCard rate)

There is also https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2019/07/santander-customer-on-holiday-in-spain--beware-of-the-500-atms-t/

What does your statement show?

PRAISETHESUN

Always choose to pay/withdraw in EUR rather than GBP - it's a lot cheaper. Visa and Mastercard use different exchange rates, but they are usually within 0.5-1% of each other so shouldn't account for that dramatic of a difference unless something else is going on. Did you use your cards at the same ATM? I'm wondering if one of you is being charged an ATM fee that the other isn't? Do the two of you have exactly the same type of account? There may also be subtle differences in the Forex fees Santander charge if you have different types of account.

greyteam1959

@patndave
Did you use the cards on the same day ??
I ask because the GBP to Euro has suffered around a 3.5% drop in a matter of a couple of days.
I also think you are being misinformed by Santander regarding the 'with conversion' / without conversion'.

patndave

Thanks for your replies.  Both cards are from the same account, but my partner has another two years on his visa card.  The obvious answer is to always withdraw with his card but that isn´t always convenient.  Yes the rate  has dropped a lot in the last couple of days so we are paying more on his withdrawals but we are not using my card at all now.  I definitely was advised to use 'with conversion`by Santander and it took me a while to realise I wasn´t paying charges but I was paying a lot more for my euros.  Santander complaints department have been looking into this since 10th September and still no conclusion.