smifee Posted February 4, 2011 Share Posted February 4, 2011 Went to Belgium on a fag/baccy run on Monday. Didn't withdraw cash just purchases. Halifax Visa Debit card:- rate 1.136 charges £1.50 Nationwide Visa Debit card:- rate 1.168 charges £17.43 Result:- Nationwide cheaper by £7.85 on a transaction of just under £900. Two identical transactions made within 5 minutes of each other. Nationwide transaction on statement one day before Halifax but exchange rate rose during that period. Despite that Halifax rate poorer. Have closed all my Nationwide accounts except the flex. I've been waiting to do a straight comparison. Looks like I'll keep it and before any trips transfer money from my Halifax account (they pay me £5 a month to have the account). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted February 4, 2011 Share Posted February 4, 2011 For an EU foreign purchase-transaction, your Halifax debit card charges a currency conversion fee of 2.75% of the total transaction amount, plus a service fee of £1.50. Your Nationwide debit card charges a commission of 2.00% of the transaction amount, but no service fee. Your figures suggest that your NW statement shows the 2.0% commission charge separately, whereas Halifax's 2.75% currency conversion fee is 'buried' within the exchange rate they quote and only the £1.50 service fee is shown separately. If you allow for Halifax's 2.75% conversion fee, you'll find that the underlying exchange-rate is much the same for both transactions. Plainly you'd be better off using your NW debit card for EU foreign purchase transactions than your Halifax one, simply because Halifax's percentage commission fee is 0.75% higher than NW's to begin with, AND Halifax charges a £1.50 service fee per transaction on top. However, you'd be even better off if you used a credit-card that charges NO commission fee for EU foreign purchase transactions (eg Nationwide's Gold credit card) and paid off the debt in full when it became due. That way you would have obtained NW's 1.168 exchange-rate but avoided the £17.43 charges. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
net-traveller Posted February 4, 2011 Share Posted February 4, 2011 Or you could use a Halifax Clarity credit card which has a 12.92% for cash advances, ie approx 1% per month, whereas NW is about 24%. It's getting complicated out there! ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
laimeduck Posted February 4, 2011 Share Posted February 4, 2011 Have a look at this link which explains all:- http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/cheap-travel-money The "cards from hell" section lists all the sheisters! Jeremy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smifee Posted February 4, 2011 Author Share Posted February 4, 2011 Derek Uzzell - 2011-02-04 4:12 PM For an EU foreign purchase-transaction, your Halifax debit card charges a currency conversion fee of 2.75% of the total transaction amount, plus a service fee of £1.50. Your Nationwide debit card charges a commission of 2.00% of the transaction amount, but no service fee. Your figures suggest that your NW statement shows the 2.0% commission charge separately, whereas Halifax's 2.75% currency conversion fee is 'buried' within the exchange rate they quote and only the £1.50 service fee is shown separately. If you allow for Halifax's 2.75% conversion fee, you'll find that the underlying exchange-rate is much the same for both transactions. Plainly you'd be better off using your NW debit card for EU foreign purchase transactions than your Halifax one, simply because Halifax's percentage commission fee is 0.75% higher than NW's to begin with, AND Halifax charges a £1.50 service fee per transaction on top. However, you'd be even better off if you used a credit-card that charges NO commission fee for EU foreign purchase transactions (eg Nationwide's Gold credit card) and paid off the debt in full when it became due. That way you would have obtained NW's 1.168 exchange-rate but avoided the £17.43 charges. Unfortunately Nationwide won't give me a Gold card (I'm too poor):$ For the tobacco purchases I would have been better off taking £s. They were working on a rate of 1.20. *-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted February 5, 2011 Share Posted February 5, 2011 net-traveller - 2011-02-04 5:40 PM Or you could use a Halifax Clarity credit card which has a 12.92% for cash advances, ie approx 1% per month, whereas NW is about 24%. It's getting complicated out there! ;-) Nationwide's credit-cards are much worse for cash advances than that. There's a 2.5% 'handling fee' and the annual rate of interest is 27.9% (2.075% montlhy). But, if you can actually get your hands on a debit card that's genuinely charge-free for cash advances abroad (like Santander's Zero Account debit card), that should be preferable to anything else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted February 5, 2011 Share Posted February 5, 2011 smifee - 2011-02-04 11:35 PM Unfortunately Nationwide won't give me a Gold card (I'm too poor):$ For the tobacco purchases I would have been better off taking £s. They were working on a rate of 1.20. *-) Can't you get a "Classic" credit card from Nationwide, rather than a "Gold" one? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smifee Posted February 6, 2011 Author Share Posted February 6, 2011 Derek Uzzell - 2011-02-05 7:53 AM smifee - 2011-02-04 11:35 PM Unfortunately Nationwide won't give me a Gold card (I'm too poor):$ For the tobacco purchases I would have been better off taking £s. They were working on a rate of 1.20. *-) Can't you get a "Classic" credit card from Nationwide, rather than a "Gold" one? Had one but cancelled it when I began closing my Nationwide accounts in response to their new charges. Halifax give me £60 a year for having their 'Reward Current Account' so I figured that would more than cover any charges. However with their debit card charging 2.75% + £1.50 each transaction It wouldn't last a 2 month trip with my card use. Nationwide got a real slagging in the Daily Telegraph 'Your Money' section yesterday. Nationwide say they have had to introduce new charges & close branches in order to pay a government levy to cover possible collapse of financial institutions. Next trip under the water is in August so will keep monitoring options until then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted February 6, 2011 Share Posted February 6, 2011 smifee - 2011-02-06 11:23 AM Derek Uzzell - 2011-02-05 7:53 AM smifee - 2011-02-04 11:35 PM Unfortunately Nationwide won't give me a Gold card (I'm too poor):$ For the tobacco purchases I would have been better off taking £s. They were working on a rate of 1.20. *-) Can't you get a "Classic" credit card from Nationwide, rather than a "Gold" one? Had one but cancelled it when I began closing my Nationwide accounts in response to their new charges. Halifax give me £60 a year for having their 'Reward Current Account' so I figured that would more than cover any charges. However with their debit card charging 2.75% + £1.50 each transaction It wouldn't last a 2 month trip with my card use. Nationwide got a real slagging in the Daily Telegraph 'Your Money' section yesterday. Nationwide say they have had to introduce new charges & close branches in order to pay a government levy to cover possible collapse of financial institutions. Next trip under the water is in August so will keep monitoring options until then. I'm going to ask much the same question again. As you've still got a Nationwide FlexAccount and used to have a NW credit-card, can't you apply for another NW Classic credit-card? We've 'only' got a NW Classic credit-card and this is used solely for purchase transactions in the Continental eurozone. In the UK we use a different credit-card that has 'rewards'. If you really want to minimise your financial outgoings, it seems counter-productive to me for you to be be paying charges for using your debit-cards abroad and carrying out exchange-rate comparison exercises if you can get your hands on a credit-card that has no EU foreign-use purchase transaction fees. Much better, surely, to save all your annual £60 from Halifax, than waste some or all of it using your current Halifax and NW debit-cards abroad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smifee Posted February 6, 2011 Author Share Posted February 6, 2011 Derek Uzzell - 2011-02-06 6:12 PM If you really want to minimise your financial outgoings, it seems counter-productive to me for you to be be paying charges for using your debit-cards abroad and carrying out exchange-rate comparison exercises if you can get your hands on a credit-card that has no EU foreign-use purchase transaction fees. Much better, surely, to save all your annual £60 from Halifax, than waste some or all of it using your current Halifax and NW debit-cards abroad. You are quite right. When I cancelled I got the 'come back anytime' response. Having got on my high horse over the charges I'm hoping something better comes along before next trip. If not I'll eat humble pie & get another Classic card. :$ Having dropped 'Proud to be different' I wonder how long before the fat cats there decide they can get better bonuses by not being a Building Society? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.