http://www.thomasexchangeglobal.co.uk/ currently quotes an exchange rate of $1.65016/£ at its London offices. The current interbank rate as listed at www.oanda.com is $1.6291/£. The bureau's markup is 1.3%. This beats many ATM cards as listed at http://flyerguide.com/wiki/index.php/Credit/Debit/ATM_Cards_and_Foreign_Exchange . Unfortunately, it is difficult to find a low cost exchange bureau and easy to be ripped off by those charging up to 22%.
Posted by
Elk Grove, CA, USA
6898 posts
Neither are as good as a BofA ATM card used in a Barclay's bank ATM. It's free. BofA is part of a global alliance with a few banks in Europe. You can use each other's ATMs with no fees. We were recently in England for 3 weeks and we used the Barclay's ATMs a lot. No fees on my checking account. One general rule is that you have to be in the home country of the bank (i.e. Barclay's = England, Deutchebank = Germany, etc). Supposedly, if you try a Barclay's bank outside of England, you would pay a fee. I haven't tried this yet.
Posted by
Bloomington, IL, USA
9363 posts
My local credit union charges nothing over the going exchange rate for the day, either. And it doesn't matter whose ATM I use - they don't have to be affiliated in any way.