Plan your Winter Olympics travel money
4 February 2010 By Diane Ray Leave a Comment
With the Winter Olympics in Canada soon to start, if you’re heading off to Vancouver it’s important to plan your currency in advance to make the most of your holiday budget – consider a prepaid currency card.
The pound is weak against the Canadian dollar so there’s all the more reason to plan to make sure your holiday travel money covers the distance for you.
As Caxton FX advise, don’t be fooled by most high street and online currency dealers ‘commission free’ offers. The commission is often built in to the exchange rate mark up, meaning you could get stung with uncompetitive prices.
Using a card overseas usually entails a fee of around 2.75% on the foreign exchange mark-up, as well as a commission charge. Additionally, overseas ATM withdrawal fees are rife. Most card issuers charge a percentage, so you could be paying anything from £1.75 to £4.00 per transaction.
An alternative is to use a prepaid currency card, such as the Caxton FX prepaid Global Traveller card, there are no overseas ATM fees.
The value of a prepaid currency card is that the balance you load is in sterling which is then converted live to the appropriate currency at the point of a sale, including ATM’s. There are no handling charges, top up fees or transaction fees.
Another extra cost to watch out for on the overseas fee slalom is Dynamic Currency Conversion. This is a ‘hidden’ cost that holidaymakers can be unaware of. Some retailers offer the choice of paying in sterling, converting the price of your purchase from their domestic currency, such as Canadian dollars. They will then apply their own conversion rate, which is based on large margins. Avoid the avalanche of unnecessary fees and elect to pay in the local currency.
You can get a Caxton FX card online quickly and easily – a great way to help make the most of your holiday budget.
