Photo by Chris Lawton on Unsplash
Every summer it’s the same scramble. Flights booked, bags half-packed, and then the night before you fly you remember you need actual money for the trip — and end up grabbing whatever’s on offer at the airport bureau or shoving your normal debit card in your pocket and hoping for the best. Both of those choices will cost you more than they need to.
Travel money isn’t complicated, but it is full of small decisions that add up. The exchange rate you get, the fees hidden in that rate, and which card you use to withdraw cash abroad can be the difference between a holiday that costs what you budgeted and one that quietly costs 5-10% more without you noticing.
This isn’t about obsessively chasing the last decimal point on an exchange rate. It’s about avoiding the handful of genuinely expensive mistakes most people make without realising, and knowing which options actually work in your favour.
Why the “rate” you’re shown is often misleading
The exchange rate you see advertised — in a shop window, on an airport board, or on a comparison site — isn’t always the whole story. There are two separate costs buried in most travel money products: the exchange rate itself, and the fee (sometimes called a commission, sometimes built invisibly into the rate).
A “0% commission” sign at an airport kiosk sounds great. It usually means the fee has been folded into a worse exchange rate instead. You’re not avoiding the cost — you’re just not seeing it labelled.
The only way to compare fairly is to look at how much foreign currency you actually get for your money, after everything is accounted for. £500 that becomes €560 is a better deal than £500 that becomes €545, regardless of what either provider calls their fee structure.
The mid-market rate: what “good” actually looks like
There’s a benchmark called the mid-market rate (also called the interbank rate) — it’s the actual, real exchange rate at any given moment, before any provider adds their margin on top. You can find it by searching “GBP to EUR exchange rate” or similar on Google, or checking a currency conversion site.
No consumer product will match this exactly — providers need to make some margin to operate. But it’s a useful reality check. If the mid-market rate is 1.17 and you’re being offered 1.05, that gap (roughly 10%) is the real cost of that transaction, whatever it’s labelled as.
As a rough guide: anything within 2-3% of the mid-market rate is reasonable. Anything more than 5-6% off is poor value, and airport kiosks in particular often fall into that category.
Airport currency exchanges: almost always the worst option
This is the one to know before you’re standing in the departure lounge with no other option. Airport bureaux de change consistently offer some of the worst rates available, precisely because they know you’re a captive audience with limited alternatives at 6am before a flight.
If you take nothing else from this article: don’t buy your main holiday currency at the airport. If you genuinely need some cash for the first hour or two abroad — a taxi, a coffee — buy a small amount in advance or budget to withdraw cash once you land instead.
Cards vs cash: what actually saves money now
The real shift over the last several years is that specialist travel cards and current accounts with no foreign transaction fees have made cash increasingly unnecessary for most trips. Traditional high street bank debit and credit cards often charge a foreign transaction fee (commonly 2.75-3%) plus a separate charge for cash withdrawals abroad, plus sometimes a poor exchange rate on top of both.
Fee-free cards — usually apps or accounts specifically designed for spending abroad — apply the mid-market rate or something very close to it, with no separate loading. For a £1,000 holiday, the difference between a 3% fee card and a fee-free one is around £30. Small on paper, but it’s £30 for doing nothing except using a different card.
| Option | Typical cost vs mid-market rate | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Airport bureau de change | 5-10%+ | Avoid — emergency only |
| High street bank debit/credit card abroad | 3-5% (fees + rate + cash withdrawal charge) | Backup card only |
| Fee-free travel debit card/app | 0-1% | Everyday spending and cash withdrawals |
| Pre-ordered cash (online, collected or delivered) | 1-3% | Cash-heavy destinations, small buffer amount |
| Currency ordered weeks in advance vs last-minute | Rates fluctuate either way — no reliable “best time” | N/A |
The misconception: that ordering currency “early” gets you a better rate
A lot of people believe there’s a trick to timing — order your euros three months before your trip and you’ll lock in a better rate than if you wait. This isn’t really true. Exchange rates move constantly based on global markets, not on how far ahead you book. Sometimes waiting gets you a better rate, sometimes it doesn’t — nobody can reliably predict which.
What genuinely does save money is comparing providers and fee structures, not timing your purchase to some imagined market cycle. If you’re ordering cash to collect or have delivered, compare two or three providers on the day you’re ready to buy, rather than guessing at the “right” moment weeks in advance.
Cash machines abroad: the DCC trap
If you withdraw cash from an ATM abroad, you’ll often be asked a question at the machine: “Would you like to be charged in pounds or the local currency?” This is called Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC), and the pounds option is almost always worse.
When the machine offers to show you the cost in GBP, it’s applying its own exchange rate — usually a poor one — instead of letting your card provider apply theirs. Always choose to be charged in the local currency. It looks like the machine is doing you a favour by showing pounds; it’s actually doing the opposite.
The same applies in shops and restaurants abroad when a card machine asks the same question. Choose the local currency every time.
A simple pre-trip checklist
You don’t need to overhaul your entire banking setup for a week away. A few practical steps cover most of what matters:
- Check whether your current bank card charges foreign transaction fees — look at your bank’s terms or ask directly.
- If it does, consider whether a fee-free travel card or account is worth setting up before you go — most can be opened and funded within a few days.
- Order a small amount of local cash in advance for arrival, rather than relying on the airport.
- Take a backup card from a different provider, kept separately from your main card, in case one is lost or blocked.
- Always choose “local currency” when asked at a card machine or cash machine abroad.
The bottom line
- Skip the airport bureau de change entirely if you can — it’s reliably one of the most expensive ways to get holiday money.
- Choose “local currency” every single time a card machine or ATM abroad asks the DCC question — it’s a small habit that avoids a real cost.
- Check your existing bank card’s foreign fees before your next trip; if they’re high, a fee-free travel card takes little effort to set up and pays for itself on almost any trip abroad.
- Don’t chase the “right time” to buy currency — compare two or three providers on the day, rather than trying to predict exchange rate movements.
- For your next trip, work out roughly how much cash you’ll actually need versus what you can put on a card — most destinations now need far less physical cash than people assume.
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