Airport bureau quoting the inverse EUR rate at Stansted

[WickedWizzzard]

The initial message was deleted from this topic on 29 August 2025 at 17:10

[Cats_pyjamas]

That does suck, but I guess buyer beware. Lesson learnt, it's wayyyyy cheaper (visa exchange rate) to get cash out at an ATM, so long as your card doesn't charge for withdrawals.

[alangla]

If it’s the airport operator I’m thinking of then their spot rates, especially from their ATMs, when you factor in transaction charges, are absolutely ridiculous.
If you order online before travelling & collect at the airport then you’ll probably find their rates are about as good as you’ll get. When I went into the eurozone last month it was a toss up between said red & blue airport operator and a national pawn shop/payday lending chain. The payday lender won out because it didn’t involve having to wait at the airport desk at 0500 in the morning while trying to get a family to the departure gate but the rates were pretty much identical.

EDIT: in terms of the OP’s initial question, I think quoting € per £ or $ per £ is the norm, so the crap rate has been correctly described. I’d only expect them to quote £ per € if you were buying £ using a Euro denominated card.

Edited by alangla on Friday 29th August 14:37

Edited by alangla on Friday 29th August 14:38

[LooneyTunes]

If the rate was actually displayed, showing the currency combination, then you'll get nowhere... there was probably very little else on screen at the time so if you misread/misinterpreted it then, ultimately they'll say that that's down to you.

[alangla]

Cats_pyjamas said:

That does suck, but I guess buyer beware. Lesson learnt, it's wayyyyy cheaper (visa exchange rate) to get cash out at an ATM, so long as your card doesn't charge for withdrawals.

Not any more, especially in Spain. You’ll struggle to find a bank ATM wanting less than €4.95 and even the standalone ATMs in the street want €3.50 or something. That’s before any charges that your bank wants to add.

[NowWatchThisDrive]

WickedWizzzard said:

My concern here is the presentation of the rate (EUR/GBP vs GBP/EUR) in a way that’s arguably designed to catch people out when both numbers start with “0.8…”.

I don't think this is the case, you've just misinterpreted it and not double checked before transacting.

WickedWizzzard said:

The on-screen rate was shown as 0.8-something. At a glance, that seemed in the right ballpark versus the interbank £ per € (roughly £0.85/€).

It sounds like you already knew that airport FX counters are universal ripoffs. So at this point did it not seem odd to you to be getting something so close to the interbank rate anyway?

[WindyCommon]

Advance apology for off-topic excursion…

I had a few hundred USD left over from a trip. Needing EUR on another trip I took the USD to the airport fx thieves, accepting that I’d be rolled over rates-wise. They told me that the only way they could go from USD to EUR was by selling me GBPs for the USD, and then EUR for the GBP. A round trip crossing their spreads twice! I politely declined, and the USD are still sitting at home somewhere.

Airport fx businesses are breathtakingly bold in their charging…

[Alickadoo]

1. Why are you taking cash?
2. If you must, don't do it at the airport.

[alangla]

Alickadoo said:

1. Why are you taking cash?
2. If you must, don't do it at the airport.

There’s nothing wrong with doing it at an airport as long as you’re only collecting an online order. In fact the rates will often be better than you get from either a counter or online purchase from most of the high street bureaux, including the supermarkets and the one that you might send letters from.

Buying over the counter at an airport will likely be a similar experience to buying anything else there however.

[Simpo Two]

That happened in a store somewhere in the UK when Euros were introduced. People were going in, swapping GBP for EUR then changing it back somewhere else.

[LooneyTunes]

alangla said:

Alickadoo said:

1. Why are you taking cash?
2. If you must, don't do it at the airport.

There’s nothing wrong with doing it at an airport as long as you’re only collecting an online order. In fact the rates will often be better than you get from either a counter or online purchase from most of the high street bureaux, including the supermarkets and the one that you might send letters from.

Buying over the counter at an airport will likely be a similar experience to buying anything else there however.

For convenient currency access, best rates are almost always from a local ATM when you arrive, charged in the local currency, with the fx done via a card that gives you the visa/MasterCard midpoint rate.

Just keep surplus USD/EUR for the next trip…so much easier than when each country in Europe had its own currency.

[the-norseman]

These machines usually display what your going to get on the screen before you agree to it dont they? Just like using a cash machine abroad.

I travel around Europe a lot and very rarely take "cash", I usually carry a bag of left over coins from over the years but very rarely use them, few weeks ago family holiday in Europe, parents in law took ££££ worth of euros, wife insisted we took some Euros as well...

The Euros we took out, are now sat in my bag for the next trip as I used my Barclaycard (free in Europe) everywhere.

Edited by the-norseman on Friday 29th August 21:20

[alangla]

LooneyTunes said:

For convenient currency access, best rates are almost always from a local ATM when you arrive, charged in the local currency, with the fx done via a card that gives you the visa/MasterCard midpoint rate.

Just keep surplus USD/EUR for the next trip…so much easier than when each country in Europe had its own currency.

As mentioned above, that’s certainly not been my experience in Spain recently.

Maybe it’s worth trying to compile a list of countries/banks that operate fee-free or low fee ATMs as I’ve also got a debit card that’s free to use abroad & would love to go back to just taking what I needed out of a machine!

[andrewh]

alangla said:

Not any more, especially in Spain. You’ll struggle to find a bank ATM wanting less than €4.95 and even the standalone ATMs in the street want €3.50 or something. That’s before any charges that your bank wants to add.

€7 from an ATM large bank, forget the name, in Ibiza town, declined and took back my card lol,

[mikey_b]

andrewh said:

alangla said:

Not any more, especially in Spain. You’ll struggle to find a bank ATM wanting less than €4.95 and even the standalone ATMs in the street want €3.50 or something. That’s before any charges that your bank wants to add.

€7 from an ATM large bank, forget the name, in Ibiza town, declined and took back my card lol,

Isn’t the acceptance of cards completely ubiquitous in Spain though? Even market traders happily take plastic now, and places like tourist attractions and restaurants have done for many years. Just get a card that doesn’t charge foreign transaction fees and forget all about paper money. I can’t remember the last time I spent a single euro in cash form.

[alangla]

mikey_b said:

Isn’t the acceptance of cards completely ubiquitous in Spain though? Even market traders happily take plastic now, and places like tourist attractions and restaurants have done for many years. Just get a card that doesn’t charge foreign transaction fees and forget all about paper money. I can’t remember the last time I spent a single euro in cash form.

You still get stung by “helpful” traders though. I was in a small touristy type shop in Mallorca last month, buying about €40 of stuff, so wanted to use my Clarity card that I’d got specifically because it’s the go-to on here for free FX. Assistant pushed the GBP button on the terminal after I’d tapped my card. “Oh sorry” was the best I got back. In saying that, anywhere else I was able to keep hold of the terminal for long enough to press the EUR button myself, but it’s annoying that you can’t just bar GBP transactions abroad on these cards.

[andrewh]

mikey_b said:

Isn’t the acceptance of cards completely ubiquitous in Spain though? Even market traders happily take plastic now, and places like tourist attractions and restaurants have done for many years. Just get a card that doesn’t charge foreign transaction fees and forget all about paper money. I can’t remember the last time I spent a single euro in cash form.

The bus service in Ibiza only takes cash, ended up changing £20 for €19 in the hotel reception.

[OldSkoolRS]

I found that I could use a Virgin debit card in a Unicaja ATM in Spain (Granada and that general area) with no charges from them or from Virgin. While we don't tend to take much cash abroad with us these days, we've occasionally been caught out and wished we'd brought more.

Having been caught out last year and wished we'd taken more cash with us, we now tend to research beforehand to get a feel for whether an area is more of a cash culture or not. Obviously we try to plan ahead and take it with us to avoid ATM/poor exchange charges. Still got caught out this summer as we realised a bit too late that our second accomodation required a cash deposit, so we ended up drawing some extra out and got charged about 6 Euros. They then didn't ask for the deposit when we checked in, so after a few days thinking they might ask for it, we ended up spending it for some meals and the change came in handy as the local bus to town only took cash: Meant we could go in and have a drink rather than take the hire car and one of us not drink.