I’ve been travelling overseas a lot lately, and everywhere I go, there’s another Aussie making a rookie error when it comes to exchanging money that is costing them valuable holiday cash.
Here’s what I reckon you need to know about your money before you go that’ll free up some more holiday spending money.
- If you plan to exchange a decent amount of cash before you go overseas, shop around for the best rate of exchange online, and pick a day when the dollar’s relatively good to exchange your money. Take as much time as you possibly can, and don’t get stuck having to use the airport’s exchange bureau … their rates are always crap, because they’ve got a captive market. When exchanging cash, exchange as much as you feel comfortable travelling with – you don’t want to pay two lots of exchange fees to exchange twice or three times in as many days.
- Find out what fees you’ll be charged for using your debit and credit cards overseas. Remember that these fees are per transaction, so it might not be the best option to put a $US8 cab ride on your Visa. If you only get charged, say, $4 for a foreign ATM, consider that as a strategy for your foreign exchange (at your destination) if you only want a small amount of cash.
- Never (ever) exchange money at your hotel. Their rates are terrible.
- Travellers Cheques are a bit old school these days … you should consider a prepaid Visa or Mastercard if you’re worried about taking cash with you. Your bank will sort you out with that, do some Googling. Check you can use it first at your destination, especially if you’re going somewhere weird and wonderful. You can only spend what you load onto the card, and this can often be the cheapest option for a short holiday to, say, the UK or US.
- Don’t neglect your bank account at home – remember you’ll be getting direct debits and fees taken out of your bank, so don’t leave it too empty.
- If you want to buy duty free on the plane while on holidays, always elect to pay in the currency you’re travelling in (as in, pounds if you are on British Airways or Aussie dollars if you’re on Qantas), because the airlines all have their own (woeful) daily exchange rate if you elect to pay in a different currency.
Barb Callan July 21, 2010 at 3:04 pm
Travel ex or Passport cards are great too, you can go to any hole in the wall anywhere in the world and draw out cash in local currency – you can also transfer funds from your home accounts using the internet to top up your cards whilst you are overseas – we find this system works for us
Denise Duffield-Thomas August 8, 2010 at 1:22 am
Argh – seriously – we’re totally rubbish at this. We get paid in Euros into a Sterling bank account and then we travel to a new country virtually every week. Our fees are terrible, although one of our credit cards is fee-free for overseas purchases – and we always buy at the airport – virtually every mistake!