Hi all I'm off on holiday with the Mrs and kids next Wednesday and just wondered where in your experience is the best place to get £500 worth of euros from
I've seen places on comparison sites better then post office but I'm a bit worried about paying money online to some random curancy company
Am I best to just settle for £14 odd quid less and go for the safety of the post office
Many thanks in advance
Pete
Just take them out of the cash machine when you get there.
Just take them out of the cash machine when you get there.
As and when you need them.
Unless you're going to some very rural part of Europe, +1 cash machine.
If I'm flying I've usually pre-ordered from Travelex and then collected from the Airport. They used to do a best rate guarantee and also you have an option of buy back too.
FairFX card. Job jobbed.
Get a travelex cash card, available at the big supermarkets (Sainsbury's). You put cash on it from your account and withdraw when abroad. Good rates and no transaction fees
You can use it year after year
We have a FairFX card that we use to save on throughout the year, you get a good rate and no charges for purchases, €1.50 for withdrawals IIRC
We sometimes take cash if we have pound notes lying around and usually use Thomas Cook's online order and collect from the store, much, much better than the walk in rate.
If you use your debit card you will likely pay a larcenous fee. Check out the best banks for low exchange fees on the usual comparison sites.
Go to moneysavingexpert and read all the advice there.
As an example of the fees, under some duress, I took about £300 from a cash machine in Ireland and FD charged me something like £13 in total. Never again!
Post office were doing better rates on £250 and over when I changed some on the 17 th. See if that's still going it was about 4c/£ better than the normal rate. Just beware of not bringing too much back. My colleague struggled to get a decent rate today going €~£ today on about £100 it was 1.3x 😯 in a major city with plenty of competition.
Check your own card fees first.
Look at a Pre Load/No fee card
Use cash machines
We use the Post Office travel card...load it up online for best rate before we go (£500+ gets you better rate as well) then use it as a MasterCard when abroad or withdraw cash for €2 a go regardless of amount (so we take out €200ish per withdrawal). Away now as it happens and its been very useful 🙂
I prefer Post office TBH, be sure to order on line for the best rate. Usually a better rate for £400-£999 or even better for over £999. I think i got 1.23 in early september.
The difference in the rate between the bands is tiny, for £500 the "better rate" for over £1000 would return you an extra 2.5 Euro.
Unless your trading it the volume you will use will mean the rate differences are small change
"Ramsdens for Gold" are usually pretty good.