How to buy travellers cheques or foreign currency

Biggles · 22 June 2007 at 2:29PM

kjrigg wrote: »

Please help if you know the cheapest way to have money on hand in Bulgaria, (levs)
I have a new post office credit card, a Lloyds tsb visa delta card and my partner has a HSBC visa delta card.
It cost me £30 for 75 levs today (commission free), is it better to spend on a post office card, take money out of my tsb bank account, or hsbc, or should I take as much cash possible and change in Bulgaria??

£30 for 75 levs means you were charged around 20% commission!

Out of the options you list, the Post Office credit card would easily be the best. You would pay 2% (min £2) for the cash withdrawal but with the LTSB or HSBC debit cards it would be 2.75%, plus 2.5% cash withdrawal charges, plus, with LTSB, there would be £1 transaction charges if you buy something with the card.

As already mentioned, watch out for ATMs that may charge you and, if you have time, try to get a Nationwide credit or debit card before you go.

Biggles · 22 June 2007 at 2:31PM

daveybuk wrote: »

I've just spent £400 with Travelex, only to notice - just as I clicked to confirm the purchase - that it mentioned some card providers treat the transaction as a cash advance.

I believe all credit card providers treat foreign exchange purchases as cash advances, though there may be exceptions.

daveybuk · 22 June 2007 at 2:47PM

Biggles wrote: »

I believe all credit card providers treat foreign exchange purchases as cash advances, though there may be exceptions.

I think you're probably right. I don't attach any blame at all to Travelex, who were helpful, but did mention that as a service to customers it would be good to display this prominently where the choice of payment is made.

marksandsparksgal · 23 June 2007 at 9:13PM

Biggles wrote: »

£30 for 75 levs means you were charged around 20% commission!

Out of the options you list, the Post Office credit card would easily be the best. You would pay 2% (min £2) for the cash withdrawal but with the LTSB or HSBC debit cards it would be 2.75%, plus 2.5% cash withdrawal charges, plus, with LTSB, there would be £1 transaction charges if you buy something with the card.

As already mentioned, watch out for ATMs that may charge you and, if you have time, try to get a Nationwide credit or debit card before you go.

Would just like to reiterate, the Post Office card, being a CREDIT card will most probably charge you daily interest, and therefore is just as bad as the rest of them!

marksandsparksgal · 23 June 2007 at 9:17PM

daveybuk wrote: »

Good advice from the person from M and S. Wish I'd read it before - just to reiterate, BE VERY CAREFUL ABOUT BUYING CASH ONLINE WITH YOUR CREDIT CARD.

I've just spent £400 with Travelex, only to notice - just as I clicked to confirm the purchase - that it mentioned some card providers treat the transaction as a cash advance.

Phoned immediately to cancel, and arrange a payment by debit card instead. However, they automatically charge the card immediately (although the money was not to be collected for another week). They can refund in 3-10 days but say HSBC Mastercard may still charge me.

I spoke to HSBC who confirmed that it's a 2.5% fee plus interest on the advance from the moment the transaction clears!

All of this within 10 minutes of completing the order, and apparently an unstoppable process.

HSBC did say the charge may not be applied and if it is they will help me "dispute the fee". Whatever that means.

As an HSBC customer for 18 years and one who's always been healthily in the black, if they charge me £10+ for a mistake I tried to rectify within minutes my Mastercard will be shredded and my current account closed down just as quick! After all, how can it be a cash advance, when you're not getting the cash for another week?

It's a cash advance since you're buying money, not physical goods, e.g. a pair of shoes, a pizza etc. The face that you don't get the money for a week is irrelevent in the card company's eyes, (not their problem you're buying it online) the transaction has hit your account, therefore they will start charging you.

All I can say is good luck getting it back!

And hey, if you cancel the card, get a cashback or loyalty points one instead that might make you some money! (Though when you put currency on a credit card, no points I'm afraid, as I once had to explain to someone who wanted to put 6 grand on her Saga card, poor woman!)

Biggles · 24 June 2007 at 12:15AM

marksandsparksgal wrote: »

Would just like to reiterate, the Post Office card, being a CREDIT card will most probably charge you daily interest, and therefore is just as bad as the rest of them!

Only on cash advances, not purchases and, at only 1.5% per month, if you clear the card as soon as you get back it still beats the other options by a long way. Personally, if I'm using such a card, I tend to fund it before I go to avoid any interest at all.

Don't get me wrong, I totally agree with you about Nationwide, as I posted earlier, but out of the relatively limited list of options mentioned by kjrigg, the Post Office would be the cheaper. Taking cash, of course, would cost him most of all (eg 6% at the Post Office counter plus the cost of money left over that he found he didn't need), though hopefully not as much as the Levs he's already bought!.

marksandsparksgal · 25 June 2007 at 4:17PM

Oops, apologies, misread it as he was using for cash advance. (Going square eyed lately).

Anyway!

Another random tidbit from the world of M&S today, many bureaux have started using prepack euros and us dollars.

E.G. someone asks for £200 of euros and we give them, say, 285 euros.

The prepacks come in 100euros (5x20), 300euros(2x50 and 10x20), same for dollars and same denominations.

Therefore to give you 285 we would gve you the option of using 2x100 prepacks, and then the odd 85 in mixed, say 10s and 5s.

These make it a bit quicked for you and are presealed and sold at same rates as normal euro or dollar, handy for budgeting.

What is good though, is when I was selling them earlier, the prepacks can work out a couple of pence cheaper overall, due to the way the rates are calculated (not more than 1 or 2p I'm afraid!)

But I just thought it was interesting to point out, and you always get nice new notes lol!

gumboid · 30 June 2007 at 11:45PM

I am planning to visit Japan, where cash is king (few places accept credit cards, and fewer accept foreign credit cards). And very very few ATMs accept foreign-issued cards, and then even the non-accepting ones will close at 3 pm !!! So I really needed to sort out my cash and travellers' cheques (just need to remember all financial institutions seem to turn into pumpkins at 3 pm), and the info here has been very very helpful, many thanks.

Cheers
Monique.

anubis · 9 July 2007 at 4:37PM

Hi,am new to the site and to the forum...next week i am off to Santorini...i normally take sterling with me and get my euros from local bureau de change..many small shops change money in countries like Spain and give a better rate than i can get here in England...however on a small island like Santorini i am unsure if i will be able to do the same.
I now have the decision of do i buy euros here or do i use my nationwide debit card over there? ive not read the whole thread here as its very long...but from the bits i have read...it seems the Nationwide debit card is a good option and has no commission or hidden fees taken out(well not by Nationwide)...and also i would get a better exchange rate...but does the greek bank whose atm you are using take any charges or commission from the money you are puchasing ?

How to buy travellers cheques or foreign currency

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free