Travel money: how to get the best deals on cash, cards, mobiles and more

theguardian.com:

If you plan to carry foreign currency – and most people like to have at least £100 of local notes and coins when they arrive – then use a site such as TravelMoneyMax, run by Martin Lewis’s MoneySavingExpert.com. Enter your postcode, indicate when you want the cash and it will provide a list of the best deals.

Essentially, you have three options: home delivery, collection from a bureau or at the airport. Some firms require a minimum order value. Sometimes you will get a better rate if you buy more, while smaller orders may attract extra fees. Exchange rates are constantly updated.

We used TravelMoneyMax to do a price check on £300-worth of euros. When we opted for delivery, Travel FX came out top, giving us €347.81 after all charges, while Tesco came in at a pretty good €344.42.

A better rate was on offer when we selected collection from central London: Currency Online Group’s locations in Waterloo and Trafalgar Square came top, giving €353.76.

Andrew Hagger of the financial website Moneycomms.co.uk says supermarkets – in particular Tesco and Asda – are also pretty competitive.

Don’t buy currency at the airport unless you are desperate. You might get a good deal if you purchase it in advance and order it to collect just before you fly. We tried this option at TravelMoneyMax but collecting from the airport did not throw up much in the way of results. The site says because of the Covid pandemic, “many providers have paused some or all travel money services”, so it has fewer than usual on its site.

Pick the wrong credit or debit card to use abroad and you will end up spending more than necessary.

The financial data provider Moneyfacts warns that a holidaymaker taking out £250 from an overseas ATM with a debit card will typically