Low $$ / ££ - Transfering Money

[alanmtc]

Hi I am going to OFT in the summer for a year.

What is the best way to transfer my money over the pond to get the best rate.

Obviously the dollar sits around $1.98, but when you do visa payments etc you get hit with a rate about $1.90 + 2% surcharge.

How can I get the best rate for so much money?

[jammydonut]

Open a US dollar account in UK with UK/US based Bank or even Barclays

[preduk]

Pretty sure the Royal Mail have a travel card you can get for Euros and US dollars. Should check that out.

[nich-av]

I would advise you to exhange as much as you can into Euro and to exchange that further into USD as soon as you need it.
Even if you will pay exchange commission twice, the volatility of the GBP and the USD is just very awful for the moment.

http://finance.yahoo.com/currency/convert?amt=1&from=GBP&to=EUR&submit=Convert

The GBP vs USD seems to pretty steady though:

http://finance.yahoo.com/currency/convert?amt=1&from=GBP&to=USD&submit=Convert

I expect the euro to top the 1.60USD mark next week and the GBP to drop to 1.20EUR before the summer, oil traded at 120USD by end of month. This is pretty much unforeseeable and I can't guarrantee anything but seen the recent trends it is pretty much obvious.

[Pace152]

The easiest way is to do what I did, open an account with Nationwide Building society then you can use your debit card just like normal and not get charged for it :cool: