Euro (€) Currency Thread

Kauptd

Thanks for the thought, aramo. But the idea of using the equivalent of registered mail -- the UK no longer has "registered mail" as it used to be -- isn't a risk I'd want to run.

Royal Mail International Signed For service restricts which Euro countries cash can be sent to, and in those it does allow, the maximum insurable sum is £100.

Seeing as PayPal charges £4 for the same amount and Royal Mail would charge considerably more for the mail and insurance, resorting to the post box doesn't seem an option.

Thanks though for raising the idea though, because it's only with responses like yours that this particular issue can be looked at from various angles in hope of finding a cost effective solution!

richardw

If it is a 14 night holiday and the accommodation costs £800, there are 4 people going and the total transfer costs are £40, then that is £10 per person and 5% of the accommodation cost.

victor_miller

I left mine until the last minute but luckily the fast ferry had a booth for exchanging monies. The rate was good too. They have a page all about it http://www.speedferries.com/currency-exchange-competitive-rates.php

Actually they gave me a better rate than the post office. Anyway this will only help you if you're going to France on the speed ferry.

codger

victor_miller wrote: »

I left mine until the last minute but luckily the fast ferry had a booth for exchanging monies. The rate was good too. They have a page all about it http://www.speedferries.com/currency-exchange-competitive-rates.php

Actually they gave me a better rate than the post office. Anyway this will only help you if you're going to France on the speed ferry.

Though sadly, not much use if like the posters above you've been asked to pay for your European accommoation a long way ahead of arrival date.

I would advise staying well clear of UK bank transfers involving £ to Euro as the fees charged are part of the continuing great British banking rip-off.

If the Continental vendor (accommodation, or other service) offers PayPal, then a lot better: the 4E per 100E commission is good value compared to absurd UK bank charges.

Moneybookers is even better value but as was posted earlier, it does nothing to publicise itself (not over here, anyway) and in Europe it's very little known.

The choice seems to be:

a) a European accommodation provider with a UK bank account to accept sterling

b) a European accomm provider with a PayPal account to accept sterling to euro payments at 4% commission

c) a ditto provider with a moneybookers account.

If the accommodation provider has none of the above then they're not worth bothering with: they're in business to attract customers, and if they're not bothered about attracting UK customers then it's better to find others who are.

Kauptd

I'm not very good at exchange rate conversions so wondered if anyone here could help?

Last year we went to Spain for a winter holiday and changed some £ into Euros at our local Marks & Spencer foreign exchange desk.

We're getting ready for another visit and have just found amongst last October's travel documents the Marks 7 Spencer transaction slip.

It reads:

________________________________________________________________

Currency: Euro. Amount: 500.00 Rate: 1.3820. Commission: 0.00. Sterling: 361.79.

Currency convertor: EUR 1 = £0.72p EUR 2 = £1.45p EUR 5 = £3.62p

________________________________________________________________

This year we are taking £s with us and exchanging in Spain itself at a currency "shop" that gave us a rate of 1.42 to the £ last October.

As we will not be using Marks & Spencer this time, I just wondered if any bright mathematicians here could provide an update of what they think the above M&S transaction details would look like today, i.e.,

it cost £361.79p to buy 500 Euros on October 15th 2007, so

what is the £ cost to buy 500 Euros on October 23rd 2008???

Sorry! Someone has told us M&S currency exchange is online. We have just checked and the result is:

October 15th 2007: £361.79p buys 500 Euros / £1 buys 1.38 Euros

October 23rd 2008: £362.00p buys 443 Euros / £1 buys 1.22 Euros

Ouch!

Crabman

Hi Kauptd,

£408.60 = €500 at today's rates at M&S - I cheated and used their website

Also try the Travel Money Maximiser - regarding the shop in spain, is there a way to check their rate before leaving so you know you'll get a good deal?

Kauptd

Thanks crabman! I think my edited post crossed with yours!

It doesn't make for good reading, although I think it's worse in many respects for people over there wishing to sell. We have friends who put their villa on the market on November 1st last year at Euro 257,500 which was then around £185,400 but is now £211,150, a price increase (to a UK buyer) of over £25,000.

They were hoping to move to somewhere else in Spain and so the option of dropping their price to account for the £'s weakness is not available, if they were returning to the UK then it might have been a different story.

Even towards the end of last year, potential buyers from the UK were getting fewer and fewer but now there are none at all.

They have lived in the property for 10 years so it was never bought as a speculative purchase with the aim of making an easy profit. Not far from them though is a big development of properties (like an estate) which was snapped up by many British buyers in 2005 and 2006. Now there are dozens for sale and the profits those people must have thought they would make are now big losses, assuming they can ever get rid.

Thanks for reminding me of the exchange calculator here on this very site! (Doh!)

I am not sure what the exchange rate will be on offer when we get to Spain but it should still be better than anything we can get here in the UK.

We have an RBS debit card ('Maestro') which according to the MSE Money Maximiser page is one which does not charge for overseas cash withdrawals so we're glad about that as we'll need to top up our spending money after our £s have run out. We'll just have to remember which procedure is the right one for getting the best exchange rate for a debit card ATM withdrawal!

Kauptd

Oh dear, stupidly I seem to have misread the reference to RBS debit cards. The card does appear in a small table of cards which charge / don't charge, but then on another page it is listed as one of the cards-from-hell. Oops!

jonestom

I've just purchased my Euro's at the local post office, I paid with my Barclays Debit card. Barclays charged me £4.50.:mad:

They didn't procure the Euro's for me, the Post office did and no doubt they took their commission.

Surely it can't be legal that Barclays should take this money.

If it is then what's to stop them adding a commission onto everything we buy.

If I used my debit card to get euro's from a hole in the wall in Spain then I expect to get charged a commission for that, but buying Euro's in this country from a travel agent or whoever surely shouldn't warrant a charge from the bank.

I could easily have drawn the cash out of the bank which was next door to the PO had I known I'd be ripped off.

Anyone successfully challenged these charges before?

007JUNKY

hi i am a regular reader and user of this site but have never been on the forum, reason i have come on is that with the current situation i this country with money and all that I have just seen a great offer for Travel Money.

I regularly buy my money through TMS whom i found on this site and they at the moment are offering a free extra 5euros with any order placed all you have to do is put in the code SAVE5 when ordering and it is automatically credited. Really big help obviously in the current climate. Anyone else come across this?