Welcome to Travel Money Best Rates

The place for information on travel money at the best rates! Not sure what format to order your travel cash? Or simply want to compare exchange rates? Find these and more here...

GENERAL INFORMATION

You might have seen them: adverts at the airport exchange kiosks or bureaux de change offering travel money best rates. But when you have had a closer look, you can see that in actual fact, the last thing these providers are offering are the best rates.

There are various ways to make purchases while you're abroad. These include:

  • Your regular credit or debit card
  • Cash
  • Travellers cheques
  • Prepaid 'FX' cards

All of these are valid ways to buy things while on holiday. However, some carry better value than others. Using a regular credit card abroad can become very expensive – most card providers charge hefty fees for purchases and even ATM withdrawals made overseas. Each time the card is used in this way, a chunk of money will go to the fees. There are some credit card providers which offer special deals for overseas use, but are still by no means the best value way to pay on holiday.

Carrying around great wads of cash can be a little tiresome, and if it goes missing then it is very hard to recover. However, it is always wise to carry small amounts of local currency when abroad, as situations can often crop up where money is needed quickly. Some countries prefer denominations of local currency, while others readily accept plastic.

Where can you Travel Money Best Rates?

The best rates for travel money are found from one of countless online travel money providers. These are specialist foreign exchange dealers so they can get great rates – and pass them on to their customers. High street dealers usually keep a chunk of the low rate for themselves while still charging their customers an unattractive rate.

The easiest way to find a good rate is to compare companies. Have a look around online, check out the latest deals and then go to the area that lists their rates. Most will vary slightly so you could list them out. Alternatively, you could visit various financial comparison sites which will have them all listed out for you.

What are FX Cards?

FX cards are prepaid cards designed for using overseas. These are quite new on the market, but are growing quickly in popularity. They function similarly to a regular credit card and will be provided with MasterCard® or Visa®. That means acceptance will be high pretty much anywhere in the world.

The card is loaded up with your desired amount of currency, and away you go! The exchange rate on these cards is usually very competitive so they can be a cheap way to make purchases. However, they will still carry some fees including ATM withdrawal fees, top up fees and transaction fees. These will still be much lower than on a regular credit card though – and the exchange rate will be far better.

FX cards are a very handy way to carry larger amounts of money around, although there are countries which do not accept cards on a wide basis. In fact, there are some countries which may not accept credit cards at all. ATM machines may also be hard to find. Therefore, it is a good idea to check this out in advance. Visit that countries main website or go back to the financial comparison sites – many of them list world currencies and information on these.