Best High Street place for get Euros

Hi,

Going on holiday on Wednesday and need to get some Euro's. due to only being a few days to go I would rather get them from a high street 'outlet'. Does anyone know of some good deals.... Looking to exchange 500

John

ATM in the country you are visiting. And M&S here.

Depends on your bank. Some charge a fee plus an exchange rate markup for foreign ATM withdrawals which can make them worse value than changing money here. I think Nationwide are the only high street bank/BS not to charge anything.

I took advice off this group and went to the post office for my currency this year. You can order it and pick it up on the day you want. Did a little research on the net and they were offering the best exchange rate without commission.

Took my Nationwide credit card as well and withdrew approx 231 & 115 the charges were 2.31 & 1.15, which is 1% but I know there is a minimum so don't withdraw less than 100 at a time to minimise your charges. The interest costs at 1.240% cost me 3.02.

Obviously I pay my balance off at the end of the month.

I find this method safe, less hassle and competitive. I don't want to be running around or withdrawing lots in one go just to save a couple of extra pounds.

Post Office Link

Also check out MoneySavingExpert

Nationwide are putting up their CC cash advance fee to 1.25%. Even so it's probably still better value than the post office or any other UK money changer as their exchange rate markups tend to be 3-5%.

Also you can avoid most of the interest on your Nationwide CC by paying off the amount of your cash advances as soon as you get back off holiday - instead of waiting till when your next normal payment date. Their payment allocation system works in your favour as payments are set against cash advances first.

But it's even cheaper to open a flex account.

I didn't know that, and if they do its rather decent of them.

So it depends on when they calculate the additional payment. For instance suppose you have 500 on credit card and you make an interim payment of 200 because you expect to withdraw 200 in cash in a few days time, does the

200 go against the first 500 because you have yet to withdraw the cash or is the payment not calculated until statement date at which time it will go against the cash advance.

If it is the latter people could therefore prepay their Nationwide credit card (if they are the pay off balance in full each month then they can do it at any time whereas people with a balance will have to wait until after their payment date has expired) with their expected currency withdrawal and will not pay any interest charges.

This would then be equally as cost effective as having a flex account.

Surprised Martin (MoneySavingExpert) hasn't mentioned this in his overseas spend article. Maybe there a catch.

It'll go against what's currently on the card (including spending in the current month which is due to appear on your *next* statement), so paying in advance is no use unless your card is completely clear and you don't intend to make any purchases before your cash advance(s).

No, because whether or not you pay your balance in full every month, there could still be outstanding transactions in the current month, if you pay in advance the amount you pay will be set against these.

If you travel as a couple and you both have your own cards (not 2 cards on the same account) then you could use one for purchases and the other for cash advances and pay the latter in advance making sure there's nothing outstanding on it first.

But it's probably less bother to open a flex account, then you avoid the fee as well.

Thanks for the clarification.

Being a disciplined, multi credit card holder i will be able to make it work to my advantage.

That was poor advice then, IME M&S was better than the PO. It may charge commission but thats irrelevant, the only thing that matters is how much you end up with at the end.

And for some reason despite having about 3 weeks to do it they didn't get it onto my next statement so we ended up with about 9-10 weeks interest free credit. :-)

DG

Very disappointed by your reply, that I made the wrong decision in choosing the PO.

Perhaps I can give you a little more information so you can re-assess your reply and my original decision.

My local post office is 1 mile away, this office does do foreign currency. My local M&S is one mile away, this place does not do foreign currency. The nearest M&S that does do foreign currency is 7 miles away in a large out of town shopping complex, i could have it posted at a cost of 5. My place of work is a couple of hundred yards away from the post office. I only take out enough money to cover me for a couple of days, so say 100.

145 Euros cost 101.61 at Post Office. 145.00 Euros cost 100.90. A saving of 71 pence.

Now try and tell me "the only thing that matters is how much you end up with at the end"

I didn't realise your original question was 'where is the cheapest place within 300 yards of my place of work that I can buy foreign currency?' If every response to 'which is the best place to buy (x)?' question had to take into account the exact personal travelling circumstances of the person buying, I doubt you'd ever get any useful replies, and certainly not ones that are useful to future readers of these messages. It would be interesting to see what your reply would be to someone who said they had taken your advice and bought at the PO, only to find it was cheaper at M&S. I cant imagine they would be impressed if you said you knew that but you really meant it was the cheapest within walking distance of where you worked.

You could of course go and buy from the cheapest place when you happen to be in the location to avoid extra costs, but that would involve planning in advance, something you apparently (from your reply) dont do. Either that or all your transactions have to occur starting from your place of work?

Oooh, such biting sarcasm.

Mind you, if all she wanted was £100 worth, one wonders why she bothered asking in the first place. If she reckons a 71p difference between best and second best for 145 euros is not worth travelling the extra few miles for, then it might be worth looking at what the worst difference might be (and to set that into context with the travelling involved (though in her case she probably can't do a lot better than her local PO)). What do you suppose would be the most expensive place to buy

145 euros, and how much would it cost?

For short trips I've always just tended to use the bureau de change at the (UK departure) airport. Probably not cheap (a reasonable rate but a whopping commission), but certainly convenient, as it involves no extra travelling at all, and you can trade unspent notes back in on return with no further commission.

I'll second that, I was getting 1.51 EUR/GBP on an ATM card last month but the Post Office was working on 1.40.

Don't use a credit card, use a Maestro/Cirrus card. There is no cash withdrawal fee, no interest and the rates are better.

Yes but check whether your bank imposes a foreign exchange markup - nearly all do.

I took offence at your arrogant comment that it was poor advice to go to the post office for my currency, when clearly it wasn't.

The OP asked for the best place to buy currency on the high street. I suggested the Post Office as an alternative to the rip off travel agents. Since it is impossible to determine what is best for each poster, should we offer suggestions or keep quiet?

Yet again you assume wrong, since booking the holiday I have not been anywhere near your beloved M&S which offers foreign currency, so my planning was quite correct.

Yeah, I know. Just never been bothered to get one of the cards that don't charge. I offered my figures for the OP so he could see how much I was charged.

Its like when you use your mobile abroad, you know it costs a fortune, you just don't care, but if them robbing high street travel agents want to charge you 3 commission on currency, for some reason I give a damn.

It was in the context (which you posted) of 'what was the cheapest' and also seemed only to care whether you paid commission (as you also posted in another message just above) rather than the overall amount of money you paid.

Well, if you knew M&S was cheaper, why didnt you mention that?

Your planning was correct. Your response about which was cheapest was incorrect (Cheapest for you maybe, but you didn't mention that / your 250yd travel criteria).