Currency

Probably the worst currency deal is at Forexchange in Cardiff airport. Let’s say you want to head off with at least £100 of euros to cover your first few days in Spain. When Guardian Money checked the walk-up rate yesterday it would give us just €88.30 – a far cry from the “market” rate which is around €1.11 to £1. In other words, you’d be losing as much as 20%.

It’s little better at the other airports. At Gatwick, Moneycorp offered us €97 for our £100, although Travelex just tipped the £1/€1 ratio giving us €100.21 at Manchester and Glasgow.

The good news is there are some good click-and-collect deals – order your euros online and pick them up at the airport for much better rates. When we tried Travelex’s online service we were offered €108.67 for £100 – nearly 10% more than if we had just rocked up at the airport. Ensure you go online at least four hours before you pick up the cash. By changing £500 into euros online you could save around €47, or enough for a family meal in many Spanish resorts.

Moneycorp makes it a little more difficult: it wanted us to book our currency at least 24 hours before arriving at the airport. It would give us €108.24 for our £100 when collecting at Gatwick.

Unfortunately, you can’t shop around at the airport – currency operators make huge profits by offering a sole concession, nearly always Moneycorp or Travelex. Both acknowledge their airport rates are poor (to say the least), but blame the sky-high rents they have to pay. Pauline Maguire of Moneycorp says: “The reason for our higher airport rates is the significant cost – from ground rent and additional security to staffing for customers on early and late flights.” Which helps explain why as many as 50% of its customers are collecting money reserved earlier online.

If you have time there are a huge number of online and high street operators. A useful starting point is Martin Lewis’s travelmoneymax.com. Pop in your postcode and it finds the best local deals where you can collect your currency, or buy it online and have it delivered.

We tried a postcode in Hertfordshire and found that the best rate for buying two to seven days in advance was Debenhams in Luton, which earlier this week offered us €111.30 for our £100 if we collected it in store. Asda and Tesco weren’t far behind.

If you want the money delivered, Asda and Tesco were best, offering the same €110.80. There’s a £3.95 delivery charge, but this drops to zero if you buy £500 or more. PC

Getting to the airport

Drive-up-and-park rates at the major airports are obscenely high. Fail to book in advance at Luton and you’ll be charged £298 for two weeks at the long stay, while at Gatwick it’s £285. Leave the car in Gatwick’s short stay car park for a fortnight and it’s an eyewatering £630.

Most seasoned holidaymakers will know to go online to book in advance, and even if you are flying in the next couple of hours it’s still worth trying the official airport websites.

If you had booked in advance for today (Saturday), a two-week stay at Gatwick’s south terminal long stay car park falls to £125 – saving £160 on the drive-up rate. That’s if you use Gatwick’s “official” parking website. When we tried other sites (MoneySavingExpert’s first recommendation is looking4parking.com), prices dropped to around £95-£100, but that was for “meet and greet” style services where you hand your keys over to a stranger.

If you want the convenience of the car parks where you can simply walk into the terminal rather than hang around for the transfer bus, you’ll pay through the nose even if you book in advance. Gatwick’s short stay is £215, booked ahead, for two weeks’ parking, although that is £345 less than the drive-up price.

There is also the extraordinary £577 fee for an advance booking of two weeks’ premium parking at Gatwick – you get to park on the same level as the terminal. And it seems to make little difference whether you use the advance booking sites a few days or a few weeks before your holiday.

Alternatively, ask friends or family to drop you and the kids off at the airport. Unfortunately, some airports have wised up to this and found ways to extract cash. Luton is among the worst offenders charging £3 for 10 minutes, with £1 for every minute after that. To avoid this head to the mid-term car park and use the free drop off facility. But you will have to board the shuttle bus to the airport, so allow time for the transfer.

Gatwick and Manchester allow passengers to be dropped off in front of the terminal for free, but only give you time to unload bags and then your driver must be off. If you want to stay a little longer, the short term car park at Manchester will charge £4 for the first 30 minutes, while Gatwick is £4.90.

There is, of course, public transport. Ask for a GroupSave ticket when travelling with your family, so long as it’s not during the morning rush hour (go after 9.30am), and shave a third off ticket prices. For example, Southern, which serves Gatwick airport, offers a 34% discount for between three and nine people travelling together, with kids just £2 and under 5s free. It can cut the cost of a return journey to less than £50 – significantly less than parking the car. Don’t forget coach services if you are an urban dweller. Fares start at around £8 for London to Stansted.

Finally, check out hotel-plus-parking deals. Premier Inns have a “sleep/park/fly” deal for Manchester, Gatwick, Heathrow and Stansted. A family of two adults and one child staying in a family room in Manchester, minutes from the airport, is £139.40 next Saturday night (29 July), and leave the car there for two weeks. That’s 50p cheaper than the long-stay car park – and handy for an awkward early flight. PC

Spending abroad

Put your debit card in a foreign ATM and you will pay a “non-sterling transaction (NST) fee” which, in effect, adds a 2.75%-2.99% commission paid to your bank. There’s also a withdrawal charge which, again, varies from £1-£5 depending on the bank and the size of the withdrawl. So don’t make lots of single €20 withdrawals.

A Lloyds customer taking €100 from a French ATM will pay 2.99% loading – that means €103 is debited – plus its £2 fee. If taken out this week £94.15 would have left your account. And beware extra withdrawal fees applied by the machine provider.

Lloyds is at the upper end of charges, but most rivals apply similar fees. The big exceptions are for Nationwide FlexPlus and Metro Bank (in Europe) debit card holders, who pay nothing for withdrawals – so €100 would only cost £88.50. M&S Bank, HSBC Premier/Advance (and some First Direct customers) don’t have withdrawal fees, but you are charged 2.75% loading (€100 is £91).

Over a barrel? But you needn’t pay excessive charges when using your cards abroad. Photograph: Alamy

In general, don’t use your credit card in ATMs as there is usually a minimum £3 fee, with interest on top. The Halifax Clarity card is the exception which offers fee-free withdrawals.

The charges to use your cards in shops etc are similar, with most having a 2.75%-2.99% NST fee. In the case of Lloyds, Bank of Scotland, Halifax and Santander they also apply an additional £1-£1.50 debit card use fee on top of the commission.

Don’t even think about using “wave and pay” to make small purchases as there is a fee for each one.

Nationwide Select credit card holders pay no fees to use their card in shops. Neither do those with a Santander 123, All in One, or Zero card. Halifax Clarity, Post Office (Platinum) and Lloyds Avios Rewards cardholders are in the same boat. If you have one, use it as much as possible for purchases – keeping ATM withdrawals to a minimum.

Lastly don’t fall for the “let us convert your purchase into your own currency” line. If you are abroad and offered a choice of paying in the local currency or pounds, choose the local currency as it is always cheaper. Despite what you may be told by a restaurateur, you have the right to insist on paying in the local currency. Many European ATMs also now offer this choice – again stay local. MB

Travel insurance

It’s the day before you’re due to set off on holiday – or perhaps you’ve just arrived at the airport – and you realise you haven’t sorted out any travel insurance. The good news is that it’s not too late to buy last-minute cover. And that even applies if you’ve already arrived at your destination.

Ideally, of course, you should buy travel insurance as soon as you have booked your trip so you are covered for anything that happens between the time of booking and your departure date. Different insurers have different rules on when is the very last time that you can buy. Many say it needs to be purchased before you leave home, but some will let you buy at the airport, or even while you are waiting to take off.

One insurer that caters for “last-minuters” is Columbus Direct, which started rolling out self-service digital kiosks at airports last summer and now has 28 at 11 UK travel hubs, including Gatwick, Stansted and Luton.

These allow people to buy a policy in minutes, and the company says: “The travel cover at the kiosks offers customers the same prices as online quotes, so there will not be any extra cost for last-minute purchase at the airports.”

You might be surprised to learn that you can still buy travel insurance once you have started your holiday. And it’s not just forgetful people who would benefit from this. Perhaps you had planned a short holiday and took out a single-trip policy, then your plans changed and you decide to stay away for longer, says Kevin Pratt, insurance expert at Moneysupermarket.

A number of specialist insurers will offer cover once you are abroad, but you can probably expect to pay a premium (excuse the pun) for this, and there will often be special conditions attached. For example, with firms such as The True Traveller you can’t claim for anything for two days after you have taken out the policy, though if you are injured in an accident that was witnessed and verified you are covered for that immediately.

Other firms in this market include Towergate, World Nomads, Navigator Travel Insurance and Globelink.

Some people will take the view that travel insurance is unnecessary, particularly if they are going to Europe, because a valid European health insurance card (Ehic) gives you access to the same state-provided healthcare that is available to a resident. Indeed, Columbus Direct claims millennials are the most likely group to travel uninsured.

But the Association of British Insurers insists that this is not a substitute for having insurance, as it will not cover all medical costs or the cost of emergency repatriation back home.

Industry figures show that the average cost of an annual travel insurance policy is £37. However, single-trip policies can be a lot cheaper. Recent figures from comparethemarket.com suggest that if you are healthy and travelling to Europe for a week, for example, you might be able to pick up a policy for as little as £5, or even less – though you probably won’t be getting terribly good cover for that price. RJ