Holiday travel money at home in piles

British holidaymakers are overestimating their holiday travel money needs and returning with piles of unspent foreign currency. Is there a better option for travel money?

According to Santander Cards over 60% of Britons have been on holiday this year and nearly half of these have been on holiday abroad.

But it seems that over 70% of these holidaymakers have returned with unspent foreign currency travel money – the average bringing back £61 worth of currency.

But with many converting their currency back into sterling, aren’t they wasting money through the conversion rates?

Possibly not, if the conversion rate has become more favourable that is.

But often this is not the case, and the currency rate goes against you.

One option is to use a prepaid currency card. This can be loaded with your currency before you go and then any left at the end can remain on the card until you travel abroad again – no need to hoard piles of different currency around your house.

With high street banks, such as Lloys TSB, providing prepaid currency cards or specialist providers such as FairFX or Caxton FX offering currency cards there is plenty of choice.

There is usually a £9.95 application fee for the FairFX card but

MoneyHighStreet currently has a special reader offer

You can get a FREE FairFX currency card here – just sign up and load €10 and get the card free.

Another option is to use a Santander Zero card. It, as Callum Gibson of Santander Cards, comments ‘has no foreign exchange fee anywhere in the world, helping to make holiday spending less expensive and also saving holidaymakers the hassle and expense of changing currency back.’

Of course, as some 8% do, you can give your unspent currency away – to charity or to friends for example.