Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Society’ Category

Although many people would tell you that travellers cheques (or travelers checks) are past their sell-by date, that’s not the case.

Their major plus point is that even if they’re lost or stolen, you can still get the money back which is not the case if you were carrying around the same amount in cash, their closest equivalent. In both American and Canada they can be used as though they were cash even in places that say “no checks accepted” and you can also treat them this way to some extent in the UK.

As with cash, it’s useful to have some travellers cheques in either US$ or Euro. If you’re going to America go with US$, Europe or Africa Euro are generally best. One key difference is that because you may be charged to cash them, it’s best to stick to 100 denominations rather than 20’s as we recommended with cash. Banks cashing them usually charge some combination of a per cheque fee and/or a percentage with, of course, a foreign currency conversion charge if the cheques aren’t in their local currency. You can avoid these charges by cashing them at an office of the issuing bank. Again, if you’re going to a civilised country it’s best to consider these as a backup and just get cash in an ATM when you get there.

Since there’s no expiry date on the cheques, you should keep any uncashed cheques for future holidays if they’re in a mainstream currency which’ll save you on charges and commissions.

Unlike cash, travellers cheques come with a brand and it’s best to stick to the more common ones which are American Express, Mastercard, Visa and Thomas Cook. Normally your bank will issue cheques with one of these brands plus their own. You can’t use American Express or any American issued cheques in either Cuba or Vietnam.

Charges are similar for cash at around 7% (even in “commission free” places). Sometimes it’s cheaper to get cash, sometimes travellers cheques. Check at your bank if they’ve any special offers for customers but otherwise shop around.

Take them in the currency of the country you’re going to if it’s a mainstream one, otherwise dollars or euros. If you have any left over after your holiday, keep them rather than cash them in your bank as you can use them later (there is no expiry date) and this will save you paying the commission again. If you buy travellers cheques on a card, it counts as a cash advance with all the charges that implies. Make sure that your travellers cheques come with the Visa or Mastercard or American Express brands as others may not be accepted. You can’t use American Express travellers cheques in Cuba or Vietnam nor any issued by American banks.

Downsides are that you will have to pay to cash them at foreign banks which will involve an additional exchange rate charge if they’re not denominated in the local currency. Worth noting is that not all banks cash travellers cheques and, bizarrely, some require you to have an account with them before they’ll cash them.

I’m going to work my way through the various ways you can take money abroad over the next few weeks. I’ve already covered cash and travellers cheques, and will be covering credit/charge cards, debit cards, cash cards and prepaid cards in future episodes.

The package for this arrived the other day though it’s another couple of weeks before the website opens.

As well as the book (200 pages!) and assignment guide (but not the actual assignments) there’s a DVD which seems to have loads of videos on it and the digital microscope program. Sadly they don’t send out proper digital microscopes any more so this is just a simulation by way of the DVD although I imagine that they’d have some health and safety issues around sending out slides with some of the microbes these days.

The plan is that I set this course aside for a couple of months ’til I get SK185 finished off (the ECA needs more thought than expected), TT280 finished and the first A251 TMA out of the way. Essentially I’m thinking of this as a warm-up for S204 which should be turning up after Christmas so there’s no rush to get moving on it and I’m aiming for the second ECA submission date which is in late April.

You’d think that the free creche within IKEA was aimed at those shopping there who don’t want to drag the kids around the shop with them but it isn’t really.

Although I’m sure that they originally intended that, what’s happened since is that it has become too popular, at least in the afternoons. Thus when you turn up at the shop your creche slot (it’s for up to 10 year olds) is generally a couple of hours later so you either drag the kids around and then plop them in the creche or you go to it specially.

Our little guys thought it was better than Indiana Land so have added that to one of the play areas that they’ll be asking to be taken back to. What I think we’ll do next time is to book a slot in the morning and drop them in for the 45 minutes after school.

I wonder how long IKEA will continue to fork out for it now that it’s effectively become separated from the shop?

We were meaning to take a Halloween weekend break and had spent ages tracking down somewhere that had lots of stuff going on locally and even more time finding accommodation.

And then we looked out the window and looked up the weather forecast.

One of the roads we’d have been going along is already impassable due to the flooding and the weather for the whole weekend looks pretty dire. Somehow I suspect that we’d have ended up baling out the cottage by the lake that we were aiming for rather than going round the Halloween events that we’d picked out.

Oh well. I guess we’ll have to keep the money aside for the Christmas break instead.

Whilst most people will tell you that cards are the way to go, there’s something to be said for having some cash with you too.

As far as cash goes, it’s sometimes handy to take around $100 in US dollars or perhaps 100€ in euro as both currencies are accepted in a lot of places outside their home country. Don’t take anything larger than a 20 as you will, of course, receive change in the local currency and may not want to be stuck with lots of it.

If you’re going to a country which doesn’t use those currencies the best one depends on where you’re going eg US$ are more useful in South America than Euro, but in many former European colonies in Africa the reverse applies.

What about the local currency? If you’re going to a civilised country, it’s usually best to wait ’til you get there and withdraw it from an ATM in the airport. In most other cases you can find that you either can’t get it or there are severe limitations on how much you can get. For example, when I went to India the maximum you were allowed to take in local currency was £5 ($10) which simply wasn’t worth bothering about.

The cost to you is around 7% for amounts of around the $100/€100 if neither are the currency in your own country (don’t believe those “no commission” signs: the actual charge even in those places is around 7%). If you’re going to a fairly civilised country, it’s best to wait ’til you get there as it’s almost always cheaper to withdraw cash in local currency from an ATM than it is to get foreign currency abroad.

If you’ve some foreign currency left over at the end of your trip many places these days advertise that they’ll buy it back off you commission free. That does NOT mean that they won’t be charging you and in fact it usually costs around 3% to 5% to do this. Therefore, if you’re intending to go back to the same country the following year, just keep the cash and definitely do that if you’ve picked up the $100/100€ that we recommended earlier.

Downsides? well, travel insurance rarely covers cash so if it’s stolen, it’s gone. Also, if the country you’re going to doesn’t use the currency you’ve taken then you can pay considerable amounts in commission and other charges to change your money into the local currency. Worth noting is that not all banks offer foreign exchange services.

I’m going to work my way through the various ways you can take money abroad over the next couple of weeks or so which’ll cover travellers cheques (travelers checks), credit/charge cards, debit cards, cash cards and prepaid cards.