Money matters

Thanks Phred for the reminder. From your post and others, I’ve learned not to take much cash. Have my primary and back-up credit cards in Apple Wallet.
Any opinion about cash outside of London? I’m on the RS South of England tour in July.

We had the same experience in September, and we were in Bristol, Bath, Dorset, Wiltshire, Salisbury, London. Everything was tap-to-pay, so either credit card or Google/Apple pay. In Bath, I bought one postcard from a shop and thought they might prefer cash - but no, the shopkeeper said he preferred CC. The only place we could have used cash was for donating to the RNLI - they came around with a can while we were waiting for the ferry at the Poole harbor. My advice is to have at least two credit cards (Visa or Mastercard) and a little bit of cash for emergencies.

"Any opinion about cash outside of London? I’m on the RS South of England tour in July"

The same - it's really rare to find a cash-only place even outside of London. Far more likely to find a card-only place. I travel to the UK about five times a year, and I calculated that in the past 12 months, I've spent only £40 cash, and that was at an open-air antiques market. And even then the vast majority of stall accepted card.

We visited in April of 2023 and hardly used any cash then. My husband likes to have cash in hand so he took £100 out of an ATM. I was spending most of it at the airport before leaving.

I should have mentioned, don't forget to convert! Most of my recent trips have been in the Euro zone and I would just assume a Euro was a dollar. But not in England. Basically you should multiply by 1.5. So my 39 pound Greek dinner was really $51, and my 66 pound French bistro actually charged me $87. Ouch.

Or technically, Chase converted me at 1.311753 and then at 1.311433. Very impressive to have so many decimal places.

I still recommend carrying some cash on any trip.

Did any of you recent UK visitors notice being charged a small fee for using a credit card? We are heading to UK again in April and just curious because several places we frequent here at home in PA have started adding about 2.3% to the bill for credit card use and my nail salon gives a $2.00 discount for cash payment. Also some places have a.minimum amount we can charge, I think we have to pay in cash for anything less.than ten or fifteen dollars.

We will always have some cash with us.

Just this month, we visited London, and several towns outside of London, including Bath, Salisbury, Sherborne, and Wells, as well as St. Fagan's Museum in Wales.

We took about 80-100 pounds left over from an earlier trip this year. We ended up using all the cash. We used cash for housekeepers in several locations, cash or cash tip when it was apparently preferred at a food vendor, a few donations, and a couple of market stalls where preferred. I encountered at least one charity shop both this trip and last which was unable to accept card payments at that specific time (saw a few other patrons walking away from the till without purchases). In more than one location we encountered parking kiosks (street as well as lot) in which we could not get the online payments to work (daughter and her fiance had apps and are very adept with parking kiosks). We used cash for a couple, and were able to use our English Heritage parking pass for another.

We will continue to have cash at hand for UK visits, especially when renting a car and visiting outside of London.

I got 100 gbp at the beginning of my trip, and ended up giving my last five pound note to the taxi driver who took us to the airport two weeks later. We "tapped" to pay for almost everything!

I've spent nearly four of the last five months in the UK. All over.

I have only used cash for taxis in Dundee and will use cash later today to get a haircut. (The person cutting my hair doesn't take credit cards but will take a bank transfer. Easier to just pay in cash.)

Two days ago at the Pret a Manger at Brighton rail station, they had a sign "cash only." Their credit card machines were down. Perhaps a good reason to have some cash on you.

Nowhere have I seen a "charge" for using a credit card.

Surcharging credit / debit cards above the posted price is generally not allowed in England and although this doesn't legally extend to American-issued cards where the processing costs are higher I have never seen a differential made.

Surcharging for other firms of payment, eg cash is allowable up to the processing cost. Again I can't think of seeing an example though.

I suspect that anyone travelling to the UK on holiday will have very little use for cash, but conversely there are not many places where you can't pay cash. There are definitely some, so you absolutely need cards and at least 2 in case one fails. But I often use cash here locally where there are a few places that will only take cash and others who prefer it. One area that nearly always only takes cash are Chinese takeaway restaurants, which again probably are not used often by tourists.

For the last three months here in the UK, I’ve had just 40p in cash on me and haven’t used it at all. And I’m down in the Devon/Cornwall area.

However there was one lovely restaurant where they don’t put a service charge on the bill, and don’t allow tipping on a card either, just cash in the jar. I was extremely apologetic and they were all, “no worries at all!”

So I should probably get a few quid out - maybe £20 to see me through to next year!

I just returned from London and my experience was slightly different. Only about half of the pubs/restaurants we visited had a service charge included. So, we did have to add on a tip.

While many of the toilets do seem set up to use credit cards, the card readers were often not working and we needed to have coins, which luckily we had. For one of our taxi rides, the card reader went offline or something and we needed to pay the driver in cash. I also like to tip housekeeping when I get my room cleaned every few days. So, cash is also needed for that.

I like to be prepared, so I'll always have some local currency on me just in case.

Any opinion about cash outside of London? I’m on the RS South of England tour in July.

I had the same experience using cards. I was there for 5 1/2 weeks, and only 5 days were spent in London. The rest was all over the country. I only paid with cash once and that was for a B&B that did not accept credit cards. Most people book there through booking.com but because I didn't, I had to pay cash. Otherwise, I used credit cards the entire time; for groceries, petrol stations, restaurants, tickets, etc.

I want to add that this was my fourth time in the UK since 2022 and there have been situations where cash was needed, no credit cards accepted. So yes, I always keep some cash with me. Even in London - there was a shawarma place on Queensway that only accepted cash. Many taxis say they accept CCs but then the CC reader does not work. Sometimes there is a market stall or small shop which will accept CCs only above a certain spend.

Another thing I noticed this time as I was traveling with my husband and he was using a Citi card and I was using a Chase card...the Citi USD/GBP conversion rate was always better than the Chase...not by much...perhaps a few pounds over the course of 10 days, but there was a difference.

Did any of you recent UK visitors notice being charged a small fee for using a credit card?

No. In five weeks this never happened once.

My only use for cash in Great Britain was tipping my caddies on the golf course. Otherwise tap-to-pay everywhere. And I mean everywhere. You can add a tip for superb service on the credit card if you like in pretty much every restaurant and pub.

We spent about a month in England this past summer, and our experience was mixed. Almost every place we shopped or ate asked if we wanted to pay in cash or with a card.

There were a few places that were cash only, and a very few that were card only. One of our favorite restaurants, an Italian place in London, took cards, but preferred cash.

"Any opinion about cash outside of London? I’m on the RS South of England tour in July"

I was south of London today at the incredibly beautiful at this time of year National Trust Sheffield Park. Everything, plant shop, shop, cafe, entry, is tap to pay, with one exception. They mention on line and on the advertising boards near the courtesy maps that the little snack kiosk out on the trails, The Shant, is cash only. It is way out on the depths of the gardens and is in a mobile not-zone. I was elsewhere in the Gardens and it took a really long time to upload photos to WhatsApp, I either had one bar or none.

That is by far the exception though. And we didn't eat anything on the property today so I didn't see how well that went down.

By the way, if anybody wants to see autumn leaf colour, Sheffield Park is the place https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/sussex/sheffield-park-and-garden

It really can't be emphasized enough how cashless Europe as a whole has become and what type of credit card you should have. On recent trips I am noticing so many Americans who either don't have a TAP enabled card or maybe have one but have never paid that way and are bewildered when the waiter brings the machine to the table. If you don't have a TAP enabled card, then an alternative is Apple Pay. It's a rapidly changing situation and of course varies from country to country. I feel like guidebooks need to devote more space to explaining it given how many threads about the topic are started on forums like this.

"I Feel like guidebooks need to devote more space to explaining it given how many threads about the topic are started on forums like this."

To be honest, I think it's really an American thing - Singapore is mainly card, and I would almost never use cash in Australia, my home country- you just tap for everything. So the UK setup is not exactly foreign to us. I think it comes down to a proliferation of small banks in the US.

Did any of you recent UK visitors notice being charged a small fee for using a credit card?

It's been illegal in the UK (and the EU) since 2018 to charge any fees for using a card as opposed to cash.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/card-surcharge-ban-means-no-more-nasty-surprises-for-shoppers

It wasn't until I started reading here that I realised how normal it is for Americans to use credit cards as opposed to debit cards.

Simon, it depends. I live in Seattle and rarely use cash anymore. The same bills have probably been in my wallet for over a year. There are a surprising number of Americans though who still use cash for everything, and while becoming rarer, a fair number of cash only businesses. So, many Americans are having a rough time now in Europe if they are not used to using credit cards, especially tap cards, and didn't do their research beforehand.

And just to note that not ALL of Europe is cashless, postings have discussed Germany and Austria still often and preferably accepting cash