In cash via exchange bureaus

This is probably one of the most common ways to buy currency before a holiday.

Advantages: Easy if live beside a bureau, Cash delivered on the spot

Disadvantages: Often consists of hidden fees, impossible to compare to alternatives, hassle to get there if it is not walking distance from your house, unsafe to walk with cash, a chance of fraud / forgery, often bad exchange rates.

With banks (cash on the spot, or home collection)

This is the traditional “safe” way of getting money exchanged.

Advantages: Safe, Secure, and Insured

Disadvantages: Extremely expensive. Look at our comparison above. In some cases you’d be paying twice as much using a bank rather than using a commercial companies. If you have a transparent quote that beats the 2-2.5% mark, then it might be a good idea to give banks a try.

Currency Cards

As debit spending passes the 600bn barrier in the UK for the first time, it’s only natural people would love foreign currency cards. These are specialised cards that allow you to exchange at set rates, and have several different currencies loaded on the same card.

Advantages: No hassle required. Simply take your card with you as you travel abroad.

Disadvantages: Debit currency cards are usually a very good choice, and the same rates mentioned above will apply also to currency exchanges on the card. On the other hand if it’s a foreign currency credit card, saving is unlikely – and charges abroad could incur additional 3% in interest.

Traveler’s cheques

Traveler’s cheques are not as half as popular as they were before as a mean of travel money purchase, with good reason.

Advantages: Insured against losses, No need to carry large amount of cash around

Disadvantages: Often expensive, archaic (hard to find cash exchange points), and online order is possible only from £400

Travel Currency Firms

This is probably the way to get the cheapest travel money in Australian Dollars, Euro, US Dollars, Czech Koruna, Canadian Dollar or Swiss Frank.

Advantages: Easy to execute with online purchase with debit card, multiple pickup options including cash at airport, home delivery, or loading into a prepaid card. On top of that, they offer the best exchange rates, superior client service.

Disadvantages: It depends which company is it. Some companies, and mainly the popular ones like Western Union and Moneygram are not particularly popular with their clients – and poorly rated on our website as well.

Bank to bank / Multi-currency Online Wallet

This method is usually not applicable when you go on a holiday someplace abroad, but when it is, it a potential huge saver against all other alternatives, by a far cry.

Advantages: Safe, Secure, Done online or via phone, higher limits, and exchange rate could potentially be much better.

Disadvantages: Longer process, more documentation, apt only for large transactions

Paying for luxury items like hotels is much better done through a debit card (if you have low FX fees on your card) or through a bank wire. Why carry large amounts of cash which is expensive to exchange when you have an alternative to send and receive money for cheaper?

Using money transfer companies, you can enjoy sub 1% margins on your transactions and get a lot of extra benefits like hedging, currency forwards and top notch guidance. Using a multi-currency account you can actually receive money in foreign currency too and exchange it freely to any currency of your liking. There are even companies like Payoneer that will allow you to accept money in your multi-currency account and withdraw it in cash using a MasterCard the company will issue for you.