Spending money for UK trip.

[LKC]

The last time we went to the UK, we used a Barclays account which we had left open, and which had enough in it (from birthday/Christmas presents and repayment of a large-ish loan by a friend) to pay for our car hire and holiday spending money. We just rocked up at the bank with ID and withdrew the cash as and when we needed. When we go over in September for a month however, we don't have anything like enough in that account to pay for car hire, self-catering spending, petrol and spending money, and we are wondering what is the best way to arrange our finances for the trip. We need to pay for car hire, petrol for four weeks, including driving from Kent to Birmingham to Inverness with a weeks holiday in Scotland, plus two weeks worth of self-catering, days out, treating people to meals out and general spending money that you need with kids. Accommodation is all paid for, so I don't need to worry about that.

 

I am just wondering what might be the best way to take our spending money? Whether it is better to send it to Barclays via a service such as Transferwise and just withdraw cash as needed (or maybe even order a new card to use), use our Westpac Mastercard which will come directly from our bank account here, or whether some sort of payment card (for example my in-laws have a Caxton card when they visit here) might be the best option?

 

Any advice would be very gratefully received, because my head is in a muddle thinking about it!

[Parley]

The trouble with your Westpac card is you will get slugged foreign exchange fees.

 

I would use a credit card or debit card that doesn't charge FX fees.

 

Look at 28 degrees card or Bankwest Platinum.

 

If you can't be bothered with starting a new account then sending your money to your UK account is probably the best bet.

At least the exchange rate has moved in your favour.

[Quoll]

Send money via Tranzfers or such - might even find your first transfer is fee free. It's very easy to do if you already have an account

[ali]

We use a travel card when we're abroad - works like a credit card and you can withdraw cash, you can have different currencies on it and top up if you need it. We had some pounds left on the card and just went on line and converted it to Singapore $ when we went on holiday there.

[LKC]

Thanks guys. I think what we might do is transfer some to Barclays and get a card issued to use for cash/supermarket shopping/petrol etc, and then look into the Bankwest or 28 Degrees card for extras or in case we need more than we think, that we can link up to our current account. The only trouble we might run into is that the car hire place might want a card with the same address as our driving licenses, which Barclays doesn't (they allow us to use OH's parents address for that, and mil is authorised to access the account). I'll have to check with the car hire company what cards they will/won't accept.

[Mike@Bonbeach]

We kept a Halifax Account open with the attached debit card (very little balance 5GBP), we will then transfer cash into it using someone like Moneycorp and just use the debit card to withdraw cash, pay for carhire etc. Good exchange rate, no withdrawal fees. This is what we did in 2011 and what we plan to do in 6 weeks time.

Mike

[gpo1971]

I used currencyfair to xfer the money to my Mum and she withdrew it there. Otherwise, the fees are a pain.