MSE News: First Direct scraps overseas spending and cash withdrawal fees on its debit card

Cloudane

Just received a letter to this effect.  Very nice!

What about the actual exchange rates, is it one of those cases where the fee gets absorbed into an unreasonable exchange rate or..?

Just wondering if a) I can finally get rid of my Santander Zero card (I prefer to keep things simple, one less card would be great) and b) If withdrawing cash say in the EU, would be a better option than the traditional one of getting X amount of currency before going.

[Deleted User]

Cloudane said:

Just received a letter to this effect.  Very nice!

What about the actual exchange rates, is it one of those cases where the fee gets absorbed into an unreasonable exchange rate or..?

Just wondering if a) I can finally get rid of my Santander Zero card (I prefer to keep things simple, one less card would be great) and b) If withdrawing cash say in the EU, would be a better option than the traditional one of getting X amount of currency before going.

A - It's the Mastercard forex rate so will be identical to Santander Zero.
I personally wouldn't ditch Zero unless you have another 0% forex credit card.

B - Take some local currency (where possible) to get you started. 

jbrassy

Cloudane said:

Just received a letter to this effect.  Very nice!

What about the actual exchange rates, is it one of those cases where the fee gets absorbed into an unreasonable exchange rate or..?

Just wondering if a) I can finally get rid of my Santander Zero card (I prefer to keep things simple, one less card would be great) and b) If withdrawing cash say in the EU, would be a better option than the traditional one of getting X amount of currency before going.

On point a) the rate used will be the Mastercard rate which is as good as any consumer is likely to get.

On point b) you will probably get a better exchange rate if you use an ATM in another country and withdraw using First Direct, but bear in mind ATMs abroad sometimes charge their own fees. Difficult to judge whether getting cash in this country would be better, but I wouldn't sweat over the decision too much.

Marchitiello

Cloudane said:

Just received a letter to this effect.  Very nice!

What about the actual exchange rates, is it one of those cases where the fee gets absorbed into an unreasonable exchange rate or..?

Just wondering if a) I can finally get rid of my Santander Zero card (I prefer to keep things simple, one less card would be great) and b) If withdrawing cash say in the EU, would be a better option than the traditional one of getting X amount of currency before going.

Santander Zero is currently a closed product, so that is the first consideration I would take in not closing it.

Additionally, it is a Credit Card, not a debit card, and it will be useful when travelling, for hotels and car rentals amongst other things that may not accept a debit card.

Finally, and this is particularly true when travelling, it is always better having more than one options, ideally across Payment Networks and Issuers: some times may be the payment network that is down, some other times the issuing bank and others it may be the actual BIN number being restricted by the POS providers.

Cloudane

Thanks for the info.  Next time I go (probably soon!) I'll at least be able to generally stick to the FD card (I can also shift a few automatic online USD payments off the Zero) but keep the Zero as a backup. 

At the moment I still have some Euro notes spare from last time so have room to experiment with ATMs.  As it was, I heard Germany loves cash but had yet to find anywhere not accepting card. 

[Deleted User]

Cloudane said:

Thanks for the info.  Next time I go (probably soon!) I'll at least be able to generally stick to the FD card (I can also shift a few automatic online USD payments off the Zero) but keep the Zero as a backup. 

At the moment I still have some Euro notes spare from last time so have room to experiment with ATMs.  As it was, I heard Germany loves cash but had yet to find anywhere not accepting card. 

Card acceptance in Germany should be getting easier as Maestro has begun being phased out in favour of Mastercard debit.

There will be some sticklers for domestic Giropay but many of those locations took Maestro and will be updated to take Mastercard/Visa.

Ballard

This is obviously welcome news but it’ll probably be a back up to the handful of other good overseas cards I have.

My next trip covers Uruguay, where I will use my cards and Argentina where I won’t. 

Uruguay apparently automatically refund around 20% to your account when used for food and drink purchases (a tax refund) which will be handy. 

Argentina operate two vastly different exchange rate. The official ‘red’ rate is 352 today whereas the unofficial ‘blue’ rate is 697. The blue rate is available through Western Union legitimately.

It’s been a few years since I used cash abroad so it’ll take a little getting used to.