Subject: Money - ATM (ABM) versus credit cards |
Hi Ziners
My husband was curious to see whether it was more expensive to use a bank machine (ATM/ABM) or a credit card in England and Scotland. He compared transactions from our trip in early June. We used both Master Card and Visa, both of which charged a special transaction fee for overseas transactions. We used bank machines that did not charge a transaction by the foreign bank so we had to pay our own bank's fee. He was wondering about the difference in exchange rates that were charged. His finding? It was slightly cheaper to take cash out of a bank machine. It was less than half a per cent more to use the credit cards so it was not a large difference. The biggest difference was the day to day fluctuations of the Canadian dollar versus the pound. A caveat - this was for Britain only. We haven't tested this for other places. Perhaps another Ziner might do so. Frances Toronto, Canada |