Where do you get the best exchange deals for Holiday cash? The Missus went into town on a mission..... and came back with an altered bank account that had me paying £80 a year for the privelege....no commision on foreign currency though

 

Don't bother getting it in this country. Take your cash card with you and just draw Euros out of a cashpoint at the airport when you arrive. You get a decent rate of exchange without commission.

Duncan

 

Post Office is commission free.

 

Got to agree with Bug Eye, I'd aleays try to use my Cash Card rather than credit card where possible. RBS(Cirrus) are accepted in most banks abroad now.

[Edited by camk - 7/19/2002 12:48:10 PM]

 

Replies appreciated. Does this mean that I can "hole in the wall" with my Switch in the same way as in Blighty?....Sounds good

 

yes you can

 

yes but take out reasonable amounts as its usually still a fixed rate commission so it 1.50 for 20 or 200 quid

 

Depends how much you're changing too. If you shop around, you can push them as much as 4.5 cents per pound, which doesn't seem much, but works out at45 Euros in a £1000, about £27 .
No wonder the banks etc don't want us to go into the Euro; Its money for nothing!
BTW you usually get a better rate at ports etc because of the competition.

 

No, those exchange rates are horrible!!! Withdrawals from foreign cash machines is the biggest fahckover! But you can pay for stuff with your cc for not too much %. Maybe change some cash at the foreign exchange at the airport when u get there?

 

Open a Citibank Euro account, comes with a cashcard to use in Europe. No conversion fees, just transfer sterling in whenever you like (at a decent rate too).

And they have a special deal at the moment - £25 for all new customers before 31st July.

 

I'd second what most folk have said and take your cash card. I travel with work a lot for relatively short periods of time and always draw money when I get there as it's far easier. Double check with your bank before you go to ensure your card will work, my missus has a Yorkshire bank one, which only seems to work in Yorkshire!!
It's usually £1.50 per withdrawal so make sure you take out enough each time, even when you take this fee into account the rate is generally comparable to what you would get in the UK travel agents etc.

Euro Travellers Cheque Warning!!
We've just got back from Spain and made the mistake of taking Euro travellers cheques, obviously shopping round here for a good rate and then exchanging sterling for them and therefore thinking the value of our money was safe. But we found most places charged 5% commision or a minimum fee to change them into cash (couldn't find anywhwere that would accept them directly as a payment either) which meant that you had to change relatively big sums to equate to a reasonable commision and therefore lose out on the benefit of not having to carry cash which after all was the point of them.
This is obviously due to the fact that bureau de changes etc can no longer can make a little here and there on the exchange rates of all the european currencies as they could do before so are now charging higher commision on the Euro travellers cheques

In future when on holiday we will just stick to our cash cards.

Steve