I Like these types of Posts Darren.
Exchange Rates change daily and depending where your buying your currency from , so will the amount you get.
I love the way that Companies can advertise ” Commission Free” there’s not really such a thing as the ACTUAL RATE OF EXCHANGE will be lower on these sort of deals than if you paid a Small commission fee.

I Love it when people come in to us for Exchange Rates who have been shopping around for the best rate, Usually they have spent more in Petrol and Footwear than if they had just bought their exchange from the first travel agency or Exchange place.

The Only People who benefit from shopping around is those Traders dealing in Hundreds of Thousands of different Currencies on the foreign Market, Not the average Holidaymaker wanting to take £200.00 worth of Turkish Lire.

Usually you will get a better rate of exchange in the Country you are visiting, and important to note that you Won’t get such a good rate in the Hotel You are staying in, But then sometimes Convenience can save you the time and money in travelling to the nearest ATM.

So Unless you are taking more than £5000 worth of foreign Currency, it really isn’t worth shopping around as the Pennies you might have saved could Cost you Pounds in the searching.

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I can’t be bothered to shop around.

Like Darren I visit the nearest travel agent or post office.

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I don’t shop around neither.

I usually go to our local high street travel agent or the post office.

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Travelex seem to be a good bet and are promising the best exchange rates. I’ve checked them against my bank, PO and a couple of travel agents and tend to agree. Buy online and pick up at the airport desk.

Sounds good – anyone heard anything against them?

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just been searching on the web and travelex would give you 30 euros more for £1000 spent compared to postoffice or hsbc both good places to search plus free delivery. ok 30 euros isnt much but its better in your pocket than someone elses. buying when you get there is usually cheaper but i’d rather have everything squared away so my holiday can be just that.

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DON T EXCHANGE CURRENCY IN JAPAN.

Treat Japanese banks like bird flu. I could write a ton of stuff here but as general rule if your going to japan take care of all financial stuff before you leave.

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Typical that someone in the Travel Industry would try to protect their livelihood ahead of just telling us the truth!
M& S FInance is way ahead of Travel agents -(In my experience about £100 better on most of my 2 week holidays)

Better rates are available from Banks for Wire transfer though.

Bear in mind that all of this is supposing that you don’t mind carrying lumps of cash around with you -

Travellers cheques may be a better option in Japan (victorian banking system & expensive too!) For pretty much all of the rest, you may as well draw reasonably large amounts (enough for a week, to keep the charges down) on your ATM card whilst abroad.

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I hear that Nationwide let you draw from an ATM abroad for no charge.

In this case, does anybody know if you’d get be better off leaving your money in £s in your account (and just exchanging it as you withdraw it), or getting it transferred to $s now while the exchange rate is good..

Can you even store $s in a UK bank?

I’m going travelling so talking about £6-8 k worth.

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Hi Mikey,

Whether you are better off leaving it in Sterling or transferring to $ (I take it you mean US$) depends on what the pair do over the period you plan on being abroad. in the short term (less than a month or 2) I can see no advantage to offset the risk of carrying around lumps of currency in whichever form.

Dollars may be kept in a foreign currency account, but not in your common or garden account.

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ive got to make a payment for a property abroad in euros, the amount is 39,000. how is the cheapest way of doing this

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like 2 know will i get a better exchange rate in australia than over here. if i take sterling

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i have been told to take dollars to japan

which is the best currency

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if you are looking to change up some money for Japan i would advise a mixture of Dollars & Yen but the majority being the latter as in my experience about 70% of resteraunts / shops etc take Dollars whereas obviously Yen will be accepted anywhere. Try compare-currency.com for a quote, they had the best exchange rates of the companies i tried.

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In Japan they don’t take dollars at all. It is Japan they use Yen. They will exchange and you can now use standard MasterCard and Visa and AMEX. You can also use the Post Office ATMs to withdraw money (with a fee of course). Charles Schwab has a high interest checking account with an atm card that will not charge a fee if you use it over seas but of course the exchange rate fee is charged.

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I have been monitoring exchange sites for best rates for some time and have used PO, M&S. Travelex and major banks in the past but ICE has consistently been the best, there web site is straight forward to use with home delivery within 24 hours, there limit is the usual £2500 per transaction (pain) so you may have to spread your purchase over a few days.

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Hello Darren, cut and paste the address, they change the rates after 0900 and sometimes during the day, at this moment (0720) the euro is still 1.23 to the pound. Once you have set up an account the rest is easy. They are also at most major airports.

Currency Express

International Currency Exchange or ICE…..I have no connection with them, just a customer….regards Victor

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Yes!. Free deliveries on orders over £300…good luck.

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I have read a few articles recently which says that First Choice offers the best exchange rates. I think Which? did a recent study and found them to be offering a good exchange rate, not sure if this is true but might be best checking them out first.

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If you have a Nationwide account there is no charge to withdraw money abroad and you get the Visa exchange rate (this will beat any high street deal). Also safer as you need to carry less cash…

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UKFOREX seem to be good for large amounts (> 3000EUR) of money but I haven’t check enough to say they are the best.

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if anyone is still reading this thread… I generally agree with those who say that a lot of shopping around is probably a waste of time but there are always exceptions. i was confirming my reservation on the Untied Air website and I noticed that they offered a currency exchange with home delivery. To change $200 (USD) to HUF (Hungarian) they wanted to charge almost $50. I don’t do this very often but that seemed extreme. I went to Travelex (not that I am recommending them in particular … just a random and pretty typical example) and it was about $20. So I guess that I am saying that some shopping, just enough to know the field is time well spent. I know it sounds obvious but … my 2 cents.

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The new chip and pin LINK building society cards let you withdraw from ATMs around the world All you need to do is inform your building society 5/6 weeks prior to travel Have used this method the last 2 years while visiting Florida They charge around GBP2:50 per transaction but the major benefit/ drawback is fluctuation of exchange rate It has been favourable for me twice and after taking money out of the ATM one day I’ve found due to a nice spike in the rate I was USD 250 better off two days later For dollars in my pocket I visit the good old post office Happy traveling people

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