Note to self

[andrewducker]

When doing something for the first time (like getting foreign money) ask for people's advice on DW/LJ _first_, not after you do it.

I suspect my problem here was that I was expecting there to be horrible charges, and awful exchange rates, if I just took out Euros while I was in Tenerife. I take it I'm still living in the second millenium?

Comments

Si!

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

Then again, I once, quite a long time ago, flew into Mpls after living in Europe for quite some time thinking "I can just exchange cash at the airport kiosk" to find it a holiday I'd forgotten about, the currency counter closed...

Then there's Vietnam where greenbacks are preferred, or so I keep being told.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

Always just take money out of a cash point when you go places. Never, ever exchange money or travellers checks or you'll get hit with insane commissions and bad exchange rates.

When you just pull cash out of a wall you get a much better deal.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

But always have some emergency cash in one currency or another as well for when you arrive. Or you end up as I did in an overseas airport where no cashpoint accepts your card and you have no money and no way of getting any... This is not a fun experience.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Funny thing happened to me last week.

Actually, it wasn't funny at all, but it pertains perfectly to your advice.

Normally in foreign countries, I would pay for everything with plastic and get out whatever cash I need from a cashpoint when I arrive.

So there's me, last Monday and 10.17pm arriving at Paris Gare du Nord on the Eurostar from London. And just as the train pulls into the station I get a nose bleed*. I grab my bags and dash from the platform into the station. My handkerchief is struggling to contain the flow and I am dripping blood all over Paris. What I need is a public lavatory.

Except that to get into the public lavatories at Gare du Nord, you need 70 Euro cents in coins. Which of course I don't have.




* This is not normal. I don't snort coke and I haven't had a nosebleed since I was 13. Maybe it was the tunnel. I had another one the following morning which was worrying enough (after all, blood is coming from my head without an explanation) that I got my French colleague to book me an appointment with a GP. His English was worse than my French, but I think there was nothing to worry about.

[fub.livejournal.com]

A few years back, it was a nightmare to find an ATM in Japan that would accept our European bank cards. We used travellers checks, but exchanged them at large hotels -- very quick and hassle-free.

(Luckily, nowadays it's much easier to find a 'foreign' ATM, so we don't do the travellers check-thing anymore.)

[pete stevens (from livejournal.com)]

Cash from wall and credit card for as many purchase as I can works for me. I think it's about £5 more on a typically holiday which is a long way beneath my caring threshold for the effort saved.

[errolwi.livejournal.com]

Note that in Australia, it is common to charge an extra 2% for paying by credit card. With significant per-transaction forex fees, it's certainly cheaper for us kiwis to get a wodge of cash before we get to the airport.

[blearyboy.livejournal.com]

I use the Lloyds TSB travel money card:

http://www.lloydstsb.com/travel/travel_money_card.asp

The rate works out roughly the same but you get the additional security of having your Euros in an account rather than in cash. The charges are fair although there is an ATM withdrawal fee which gets excessive if you make lots of small withdrawals.

The card is free with a Lloyds silver account, which costs £7.95 and also gives stuff like travel insurance and mobile insurance. If it's a joint account, you both get seperate cards (and seperate insurance) but you still only pay £7.95 per month.

[apostle-of-eris.livejournal.com]

My current generic strategy is to check with my bank to see what the ATM charges are up to this month, and plan to hit the first one outside the security area of the destination airport.