Sorry to bother you all with such a mundane query but my google-fu is failing me this evening and I can’t find any current info about the subject.
Does anyone have any recent experience using Euros in London England? Where can/can’t one easily use them? Hotels are presumably no prob, but what about taxis and restaurants?
merci beaucoup.
Some shops might accept them, but you’ll be paying way more than you should be with the on the spot exchange rate. The Euro is a foreign currency in the UK. You’ll be saving yourself a lot of money if your exchange the money beforehand.
It’s probably not worth risking whether a specific place will accept them or not.
Yeah, when I was there a couple of years ago, you’d see an occasional shop with a “Euro accepted here” sign, but everyone generally used pounds.
As a general rule if it accepts euros you probably don’t want to be buying anything from there, even in sterling…
The one exception is Marks and Spencer, oddly enough. Although there’s not really any reason for a foreigner to go there.
Many Thanks everyone! I was hoping now to hijack my own thread with a second european travel query: does France use the same electricity standard for as the U.K.? By that I just mean to ask if I can I plug in French devices without an adapter?
Same voltage, different plug (France has round pins, UK has square ones)
This is similar to the situation in Canada with respect to US dollars. Many places take them, and the more touristy the place is, the more likely that it will take them, but you’ll generally get hosed on the exchange rate.
I was in London and Paris last October. London had plenty of places to change money (especially near our hotel on Bayswater Road), but it was hard to find them in Paris. I didn’t see anywhere other than cheap tourist shops that said they took Euros.
As for power, hotels often have a US-style 110-volt outlet in the bathroom for electric razors.
Correct on the euros, incorrect on the M&S.
Euros are foreign currency here. Not many retail establishments here will accept cash payments in euros, and those that do will be skinning you alive on the exchange rate. If you need to use cash, get your money converted into pounds as inexpensively as possible before you set foot in London itself.
There are lots of good reasons to go to Marks & Spencer. Their food halls are excellent, and everything else they sell is well-made, good quality stuff at reasonable prices.
Many M&S’s have an in-store bureau-de-change so you can change your Euros there first:)
And the exchange rate is reasonably good, often better than many bureaus de change.
Logical Phallacy, when you’re in London, get to a branch of Muji and buy one of these - expensive, but a beautiful design, and you can use it to convert from any locale to any locale worldwide*. They also do one with a USB connector for £25. I bought one last week.
*Except for voltage.
Look, they’re alright. But the John Lewis group, for example, is better, and you wouldn’t be recommending Waitrose out to tourists, would you?
Most places in London take credit cards or debit cards, even the black cabs. Your bank will give you the best exchange rate. I wouldn’t change cash at one of the exchange places as they take a commission and the exchange rates are usually in their favor. If you need some pounds for walking around cash, just go to the ATM when your arrive at the airport or the train station.
Careful though - some ATMs in London, particularly it seems in touristy areas, charge fees for withdrawals, which is not the norm in Britain. I know foreign bank cards will attract a fee anyway, but these ATMs will probably stick another fee on top. Ones operated by a major bank, such as HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds TSB, Nat West, should be safe. The ATM should indicate whether it will charge a fee.
We bought the adapter for France before a trip years ago. What we didn’t know - some outlets in Franc have a raised circular rim around them. A fat plug will not fit, I suppose to discourage voltage converters. Anything bigger than a cord plug will not fit sometimes.
Britain and France both use 220V (240V?) so the devices are compatible. In fact, most modern electronics is 240V-120V compatible; those bricks like laptop power supplies, for example. All you need to do is use an adapter - convert one shape of metal plug to another, no electronics. My N. American stuff even worked great there. Britain uses one shape, France and Italy (all of Europe?) a different one
If you have a “Voltage COnverter” 240V in, 120V out for N. American stuff - do not use it on heaters like hair dryers (1200Watts). Most are for very limited power, like the 40Watt laptop or 10Watt battery chargers, or less. Plus, as I pointed out above, most don’t need down-conversion. Read the fine print on the device to see if it accepts 220V.
Another warning - We had a hair dryer with a 120-240V switch on the handle. We didn’t turn the switch completely (until it clicked) and it fried in a matter of seconds.
When the US dollar was $1.40 Canadian, the polite Canadian stores offered $1.25 as the exchange, some worse (if they accepted it at all). Now that the Canaian dollar is about 93 cents to 95 cents US, the best you get is even. I assume this is the same case for Euros in Britain. And for coins (IIRC, the coins go up to 2E or about $3 over there?) you get no exchange usually.
It’s not the store’s fault (somewhat). The banks add about 5 cents on the dollar exchange here too, so they have to jack up their rate unless it’s a very touristy area.
Some black cabs take plastic, some don’t. It’s by no means a safe assumption. You need to check with the driver first.
This is another point well worth making.
In fact you can probably look at things as simply as this: If it’s owned by a bank/building society, then they won’t charge you, if not, then they will.
I’m struggling to think of a foolproof way to ensure a foreigner knows which type the ATM is that isn’t too long - we have a lot of banks. The only thing I can think of is that the ATMs that charge a fee will ask me if it’s ok to charge a fee. I dunno if that’s the same for a foreign account though.
Trouble is, I almost got caught out by a proper, respectable-looking ATM in Russell Square, or thereabouts. I think it was Alliance & Leicester, some respectable British bank anyway, which didn’t normally ask for a withdrawal fee. At this ATM, however, I noticed at the last minute that they intended to charge me £1.50 or whatever it was for withdrawing my own money, the bastards. So I walked off in a non-touristy direction and found a civilised ATM instead.
This is terrible advice. The exchange rates offered, and the commissions and fees charged by, banks, credit card companies, and bureaux de change vary a great deal. It’s not possible to generalize about which type of institution or method of payment gives you the better deal, except to say that bureaux de change at ports and airports tend to be much poorer value than those in city centres.
There are online tools which screen-scrape the banks’ and bureaux’s rates and then advise you on how/where to get the best exchange rate (taking into account commissions and fees) for a given pair of currencies in a given country. For example, moneysavingexpert.com covers exchange rates in the UK and will tell you if it’s cheaper to use your credit/debit card abroad or to change your money before you go, and if so, where to change it.