Revolut weekend exchange charge

diggingdude

Hello, I taking my Revolut card away with me this weekend as a back up card to Madrid. I see it charges you to exchange currency at weekends. Does anyone know the answer to this, if I leave my money in the account in sterling and pay for things at the weekend in local currency is it going to charge me like it would for exchanging. I could exchange now but don't really want to if it doesn't charge me. 
Tried searching for this and a lot of posts (rightly) knocking the card but couldn't see this question. 
Thanks for any insight 

ChargebackCharlie

The only reason to exchange money in advance is to lock in a great exchange rate. You're better off leaving the account top up in sterling and making transactions in Euros so that Revolut work out the exchange rate on the day of the purchase(s). That way, you don't end up exchanging back any surplus into sterling and paying the exchange rate again.

diggingdude

ChargebackCharlie said:

The only reason to exchange money in advance is to lock in a great exchange rate. You're better off leaving the account top up in sterling and making transactions in Euros so that Revolut work out the exchange rate on the day of the purchase(s). That way, you don't end up exchanging back any surplus into sterling and paying the exchange rate again.

Thank you, you have confirmed what I suspected. Makes sense, especially as probably wouldn't use it 

epm-84

ChargebackCharlie said:

The only reason to exchange money in advance is to lock in a great exchange rate. 

When Martin's been advising on that before he's suggested no one has a magic ball. He has suggested if you're intending to spend a large amount you could consider exchanging some money well in advance, and then not doing the rest in advance. That way if the exchange rate drops you won't do as badly, but if it improves then you won't do as well. It's more about reducing risk than getting the best deal.

saajan_12

diggingdude said:

Hello, I taking my Revolut card away with me this weekend as a back up card to Madrid. I see it charges you to exchange currency at weekends. Does anyone know the answer to this, if I leave my money in the account in sterling and pay for things at the weekend in local currency is it going to charge me like it would for exchanging. I could exchange now but don't really want to if it doesn't charge me. 
Tried searching for this and a lot of posts (rightly) knocking the card but couldn't see this question. 
Thanks for any insight 

Revolut gives you free exchanges at approximately the mid exchange rate upto a limit on weekdays. On a Standard plan upto £1000 a month worth can be exchanged with no fee. If you have to change back and are still under the limit then there's still no fee, so on average there's no loss (if the exchange rates move, there could be a loss or a gain, but you can't predict whcih way). On a weekend, then there's a 1% fee so if staying below the limit, it might make sense to convert on a weekday even if you might not use all the money and convert back after the weekend. 

Once you go above £1000 a month, there is a fee (1% on standard plans) so it would make sense to only convert what you need at the point of purchase. 

Olenna

saajan_12 said:

diggingdude said:

Hello, I taking my Revolut card away with me this weekend as a back up card to Madrid. I see it charges you to exchange currency at weekends. Does anyone know the answer to this, if I leave my money in the account in sterling and pay for things at the weekend in local currency is it going to charge me like it would for exchanging. I could exchange now but don't really want to if it doesn't charge me. 
Tried searching for this and a lot of posts (rightly) knocking the card but couldn't see this question. 
Thanks for any insight 

Revolut gives you free exchanges at approximately the mid exchange rate upto a limit on weekdays. On a Standard plan upto £1000 a month worth can be exchanged with no fee. If you have to change back and are still under the limit then there's still no fee, so on average there's no loss (if the exchange rates move, there could be a loss or a gain, but you can't predict whcih way). On a weekend, then there's a 1% fee so if staying below the limit, it might make sense to convert on a weekday even if you might not use all the money and convert back after the weekend. 

Once you go above £1000 a month, there is a fee (1% on standard plans) so it would make sense to only convert what you need at the point of purchase. 

This is a backup card; whilst I wouldn't recommend Revolut - taking the 1% hit in a backup scenario would seem more reasonable.

FWIW, When I did use Revolut  in the past, I never got the same value changing to/from currencies with the same rate. It was always slightly to my disadvantage.  

diggingdude

Thanks, tbh I would rather not use this at all but if my chase card failed I need another and my own bank is extortionate. I've put some money on it now in £s and will leave it there in the hope not touched. 

saajan_12

Olenna said:

saajan_12 said:

diggingdude said:

Hello, I taking my Revolut card away with me this weekend as a back up card to Madrid. I see it charges you to exchange currency at weekends. Does anyone know the answer to this, if I leave my money in the account in sterling and pay for things at the weekend in local currency is it going to charge me like it would for exchanging. I could exchange now but don't really want to if it doesn't charge me. 
Tried searching for this and a lot of posts (rightly) knocking the card but couldn't see this question. 
Thanks for any insight 

Revolut gives you free exchanges at approximately the mid exchange rate upto a limit on weekdays. On a Standard plan upto £1000 a month worth can be exchanged with no fee. If you have to change back and are still under the limit then there's still no fee, so on average there's no loss (if the exchange rates move, there could be a loss or a gain, but you can't predict whcih way). On a weekend, then there's a 1% fee so if staying below the limit, it might make sense to convert on a weekday even if you might not use all the money and convert back after the weekend. 

Once you go above £1000 a month, there is a fee (1% on standard plans) so it would make sense to only convert what you need at the point of purchase. 

This is a backup card; whilst I wouldn't recommend Revolut - taking the 1% hit in a backup scenario would seem more reasonable.

FWIW, When I did use Revolut  in the past, I never got the same value changing to/from currencies with the same rate. It was always slightly to my disadvantage.  

Not their biggest fan, they screwed me over on interest when I had money with them. So I'm certainly not one to sing praises unnecessarily. On exchanges they're fairly reasonable though - eg if I switch quickly between both directions on GBP<->EUR conversions so there's no time delay to account for, on Revolut I get:
GBPEUR 1.1921 
EURGBP 0.836 

The first rate is equivalent to 1/1.1921 = 0.8388 for EURGBP, whereas what they give you is 0.836. So if you convert and convert back, then across the two transactions you're losing 0.28%, ie 0.14% per transaction. When mainstream banks are at ~3%, that's fine with me. If you exchanged £100, it would lose you 14p.