Need 4k sterling this weekend - wheres cheapest?

A

abloggs81

Guest
Hi

wondering if anyone can give some advice on where the best place to get sterling is at a reasonable cost over the weekend... only place i can think of is dublin airport.

I might be traveling to the uk on sunday to pick up a car, bit last minute and trying not to get ripped off on currency rates and handling etc.

Would it be cheaper to get it in the uk?

thanks
 
Hi,

By any chance would you have a UK bank account that you can transfer the money to? I recently used www.currency.ie to transfer over some euro to sterling on the same day for a fee of €15 and the rate was much better than banks and bureau de changes and I was very happy with the service provided (sent the transfer before noon and it was in the UK account by 14.00). Even if you don't have an UK account it may be worth calling them and they may be able to arrange an outlet for you to collect the money.

No affiliation.
 
Had a look at the currency.ie site. I think the slowest part would be waiting for the money to clear in their receiving account. If they accepted visa that might speed things up but didn't see it mentioned on their site otherwise any sort of bank xfer would have to be done in the bank - their receiving account is BOI, otherwise cud do instant online xfer with AIB.

The car im looking at buying is a private sale, so cudn't purchase with visa, cud possible withdraw at an atm but im sure the costs are huge and probably limited to a few hundred.

I think my best bet will be a decent priced currency xchange shop, again the only one i can think of is the one at dublin airport - might not be open at weekend.

final option is to persuade the seller to accept euro.
 
abloggs81 said:
The car im looking at buying is a private sale, so cudn't purchase with visa, cud possible withdraw at an atm but im sure the costs are huge and probably limited to a few hundred.
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Putting money on the card and withdrawing it will most likely be cheaper than alternatives such as changing cash from € to GBP£ in advance. There are numerous threads about this already and the www.itsyourmoney.ie credit card cost survey summarises some of the costs. For example with my PTSB VISA the charge would be 1.75% forex margin and nothing else. Check your own card terms & conditions for details of their charges in case they are different. Cirrus/Maestro might also be an option but again check the charges.
 
their receiving account takes 10 minutes to clear. credit cars is an alternative but it will cost you
 
thanks for responses. i must check t&c's with credit card but imagine there will be many hidden costs on my bill.

It now looks like ill have a bit more time to organise the sterling. Already ive come to the conclusion that its about €200 cheaper to get the cash in uk vs ireland.



This site quoted me £4143 on €5000. Must check with the banks & currency.ie when they open on monday. Will keep u posted...

Dublin Airport Bureau de change were offering £3850 on €5000 plus €120 commission, altho they said they would probably only charge about €50. Their rate was .76

Current xe.com rate is .79814
 
I am confused here.
The Central Bank of Ireland rate is 0,7966
xe.com rate is 0,7981
airport BdC rate is 0,76..
This makes perfect sense, cause banks always take about 300 pts of the rate
But how can the people you mentioned above give 0,8287 for a Euro? That's way higher than the CBI rate... Where did I get it wrong?
 
update.

currency.ie wont work as i need cash. They only facilitate xfer to other bank accounts

Question is....

Should i get the sterling from my local bank first thing in the morning or... wait till i arrive in uk and go to a high street bank over there?
 
Simple - call your own bank first, then call a couple of the banks in the UK town you are visiting, and compare the quotes?
 
abloggs81 said:
Should i get the sterling from my local bank first thing in the morning or... wait till i arrive in uk and go to a high street bank over there?
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Did you not check the charges on preloading your CC or Cirrus/Maestro card with cash and then withdrawing it in the UK as GBP£?!? Chances are this will be much cheaper than exchanging € to GBP£ in a bank here or in the UK.
 
ClubMan said:
Did you not check the charges on preloading your CC or Cirrus/Maestro card with cash and then withdrawing it in the UK as GBP£?!? Chances are this will be much cheaper than exchanging € to GBP£ in a bank here or in the UK.
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excuse this basic question, but 4k stg is a lot of cash. If you put E5K on your credit card where can you go to in the UK to withdraw 4k stg of cash.

D
 
Ah - never thought of that! I presume that there are daily or per ATM limits on the amount of cash that you can withdraw in this way so... :eek:
 
Probably the bets thing to do is to get a sterling bank draft from your bank.

Fee for draft is about €3.50
and then its simply currency exchange rate.
 
The trouble with a bank draft is that you cant really haggle for the price of the car when you see it so you`re kinda stuck if you dont like the car too. I read somewhere recently (might have been on this site) that a euro bank draft takes 10 to 28 days to clear to a sterling account?
I`m in the process of doing a similar deal and will probably get the sterling here and head over with cash (and a big baseball bat...just in case!). This gives me a choice, if I don`t like the car I walk away and if I do I can haggle.
 
Is it not possible to get a draft 1K less than the asking price and make the rest up in cash so you can haggle.If you decide to buy then you can put their details on the draft etc.
 
D1983 said:
Is it not possible to get a draft 1K less than the asking price and make the rest up in cash so you can haggle.If you decide to buy then you can put their details on the draft etc.
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I think the recipient`s name must be on the draft when the bank issues it, so that limits your purchase to one seller...I may be wrong.
 
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