Using a French credit card in the UK

[Frecossais]

We have some French friends coming on a group visit to the UK who have asked whether it's better (cheaper) to buy British currency in France before they come. I'd like some info please from anyone who has knowledge/opinion about the use of French cards in our holes-in-the-wall before I give any advice. So:

Are French cards debit or credit cards or both?

Do their cards use Delta/Visa or any other familiar processing company?

What charges are likely to be made if they use their cards in UK?

All help greatly appreciated,

Elle

[parsnips]

[quote user="Frecossais"]We have some French friends coming on a group visit to the UK who have asked whether it's better (cheaper) to buy British currency in France before they come. I'd like some info please from anyone who has knowledge/opinion about the use of French cards in our holes-in-the-wall before I give any advice. So:

Are French cards debit or credit cards or both?

Do their cards use Delta/Visa or any other familiar processing company?

What charges are likely to be made if they use their cards in UK?

All help greatly appreciated,

Elle

[/quote]

Hi,

       French cards can be debit or credit and most are either visa , or mastercard . Your friends should have been sent a charges booklet by their banks covering all types of transactions and will find details of card charges there. They may well vary from bank to bank.

       Credit Agricole charge 2.38% +30 centimes for transactions or withdrawals outside the eurozone.

[bubbles]

Sorry to but in but.........if I used my French hole in the wall card in Tenerife (in the eurozone) would withdrawals be free then?

That would be very useful.

Don't have any charge booklet with me and my French bank are not good at replying to my emails!

[bubbles]

Sorry to but in but.........if I used my French hole in the wall card in Tenerife (in the eurozone) would withdrawals be free then?

That would be very useful.

Don't have any charges booklet with me and my French bank are not good at replying to my emails!

[bubbles]

Blimey - what is the time limit for editing or deleting then? 3 seconds?

[Rob Roy]

Less than that I've found![:D]

[Sunday Driver]

Bubbles

If you check your bank's website, you should find a link to a page showing their tariffs.

 

 

[Hereford]

We discovered in Germany once that you cannot use a Credit Agricole debit card to withdraw money more than once a week if outside France. Check with bank!  It mattered not to us as we had a UK card too but could have been embarrassing.

[Sunday Driver]

As the old saying goes - RTFM........[;-)]

 

[Frecossais]

Thanks for that Parsnips, I'll let them know before they come.

Bad news about  the Credit Agricole card, Hereford. I'll get them to check.

All in all, do you think they'd be better to come here with a stash of pounds sterling?

[Rob Roy]

I can't remember what the charges are/were (not a lot) but we have used our Banque Postal debit cards without any problems in the UK (under the Visa logo). We took a bit of sterling (had to order in advance) and then just used the ATM when necessary. However, there were one or two bank ATMs that didn't recognise the card, but I can't remember now which they were, sorry! I'm almost sure Nat West was OK and buying in shops was not usually a problem either apart from the stupid limit that BP put on their cards. It might be worth your friends warning their bank they are going to the UK, otherwise payments may be blocked as 'unusual use of card'.

[cooperlola]

The Credit Agricole Gold Card (which includes travel insurance so is better value than it at first appears) is far less restricted in terms of withdrawals for travel outside the euro zone.

[Stan Streason]

It depends upon the size of the group, how much you trust them, your financial resources (and if you need euros or not)

Last year we had some Australians visit as part of a cricket tour.  Ordered in advance in varying amounts we purchased prepaid mastercards for them all plus £200 each in cash to cover pretty much the length of their tour.  They settled the entire cost in one currency transaction into our club bank account.  This worked out well and in the end we had the dregs of a few unused balances to spend.  (In practical terms a couple of cards were topped up to the max and those were used for the majority of tour expenses, players settling up between themselves later).

Not sure how much it actually saved each individual but the whole process worked really well.  If I were to do a similar thing with French friends I would probably sub them and have the euros at the mid market rate.

[Frecossais]

Hi Stan,

My OH actually suggested that we buy euros off our French friends when they come over, but there are 8 of them so we could be talking about quite a lot of money. I suppose we could arrange a figure that we'd exchange for them to use as "liquide" and just use their cards for shopping. Worth thinking about, thanks.