Purchasing Euros and Pounds for British Isles Cruise

[Globaliser]

10 hours ago, Catlover54 said:

Though no one was sticking their hands into our faces awaiting tips, and everyone from top to bottom has a decent salary, life can be expensive for lower middle class and even middle class employees, especially in urban areas. So tips we offered were greatly appreciated, never rejected, and always met with a smile (especially by underappreciated and lower salaried tour bus drivers who navigate narrow winding roads, often with no shoulder and heavy uncoming traffic, with great responsibility to not drive off a cliff).

 

9 hours ago, Cotswold Eagle said:

I have never understood why Europeans in the States are expected to abide by a ludicrous and exploitative tipping culture, but Americans coming to Europe feel free to ignore local mores. 

 

In many cases, I suspect it's simply because they feel compelled to do it - either by guilt when coming into contact with the poor and less fortunate who are serving them, or by a feeling of power or satisfaction engendered by having so much surplus cash that it can just be doled out to all and sundry (cf Luke 18:11-12). This is in play even in situations where tipping is necessary or expected (you only need to read a few tipping threads to see it in action), but carries over into situations in which tipping is unnecessary. (I'm not suggesting that any of this applies to Catlover54 - it's a general observation about why so many Americans in Europe carry on tipping as if they were still at home.)

 

So all that the OP needs to remember is that in general locals here don't carry cash, and locals here don't tip in cash (because they're not carrying any). So just as there's really no need to get cash to pay for "incidentals such as a beer or coke" (because you can pay with a card for them), there's really no need to get cash for tips ashore.

[Globaliser]

7 hours ago, Catlover54 said:

2.  Will the bus driver, valet, waiter, and tour guide in the UK (who BTW likely cannot afford luxury cruises and never will, tips or no tips) ...

 

Calling John Bull! 😁

[John Bull]

15 hours ago, Catlover54 said:

So tips we offered were greatly appreciated, never rejected, and always met with a smile (especially by underappreciated and lower salaried tour bus drivers who navigate narrow winding roads, often with no shoulder and heavy uncoming traffic, with great responsibility to not drive off a cliff).

 

11 hours ago, Catlover54 said:

 

Will the bus driver, valet, waiter, and tour guide in the UK (who BTW likely cannot afford luxury cruises and never will, tips or no tips)  be happier or unhappier if tips are banned?

 

 

4 hours ago, Globaliser said:

 

Calling John Bull! 😁

 

True 

When I was an under-paid and under-appreciated tour coach driver I never rejected a tip. 

I always accepted them with a smile, never a frown.

Perhaps that's because tips helped me to crawl onto the bottom rung of cruising 🙄

 

When driving coach tours and excursions most folk tipped, even though I didn't stand at the door with my hand out. Not megabucks, because that's not the British norm.

Tips were a measure of whether folk enjoyed their experience and appreciated my efforts. I recall one driver telling me that folk were mean and didn't tip him - that just might have been something to do with his dour demeanour and world-owes-me-a-living attitude, but I chose not to tell him that 😏

 

Driving corporate jobs or kids, tips were a rarity - but little gifts from 5 -7day school tours were appreciated. I still have mugs from D-Day, Western Front, and Paris tours & ski-ing trips.

And no tips when operating a short shuttle service or rail-replacement shuttle, but then no-one tips aircraft-to-terminal drivers despite their buses being huge & cumbersome.

 

Driving cruise transfers between Southampton and London airports, those allocated to driving LHR terminal 3 (most US flights) always had a wider simile than those allocated to driving terminal 1 or 2 (domestic & European). 

I had my share of terminal 3 jobs - the tips were spending money on road trips in the US which apparently I couldn't afford..

 

Recipients of US-size tips don't complain, far from it.

But in the UK, and in Europe from my experience there, tips in moderation are the norm. 

Half or less the level of the US.

I'll leave you to guess whether I made that point before I retired 😄

 

JB 🙂

[Harters]

6 hours ago, Globaliser said:

In many cases, I suspect it's simply because they feel compelled to do it

I play on a food/restaurant forum where most contributors are American. The question crops up periodically and I'm absolutely sure, from comments made there, that you are correct. It's a cultural necessity for many.

 

On the other side of that coin, I play on one of Tripadvisor's Spain forums where most contributors are Britons. Now, Spain is a low/no tip country (as my Spanish relatives regularly remind me) yet, when the subject has cropped up there, most contributors say they continue to tip at the UK "going rate" of 10% - 12.5%, again citing that they feel it's the right thing for them to do.

 

Not me. I try and understand the tipping culture in a country and act accordingly.

[nini]

8 hours ago, wowzz said:

Obviously I do not know about the US, but in the UK, banks will charge small businesses a fee when handling cash. Therefore,  there is little difference between the cost to the business of a card transaction or handling cash. And of course, there is no need to make daily trips to your local bank (assuming there is one still open in your local town) if you only accept card payments. 

 

Thanks for sharing that interesting point. Nobody charges a fee for using cash in the US.

[thia9233]

I was wondering if one could buy Euros once we are Holland America from the service desk?

 

[VMax1700]

46 minutes ago, thia9233 said:

I was wondering if one could buy Euros once we are Holland America from the service desk?

 

Last year they did offer them for sale at a very poor (for you) fx rate.  Probably won't make much of difference to you for a small amount but if you are paying for private tours then it could be a sizeable chunk of change.

Edited May 12, 2023 by VMax1700

[thia9233]

Thanks for the info

 

[VMax1700]

8 minutes ago, thia9233 said:

Thanks for the info

 

I found the picture I took of the fx rates.  The official rate for USD/Eur was 1.06 (ie $1.06 = €1)

 

Sorry about image orientation!

[thia9233]

11 hours ago, VMax1700 said:

I found the picture I took of the fx rates.  The official rate for USD/Eur was 1.06 (ie $1.06 = €1)

 

Sorry about image orientation!

Thanks I will let her know. It would be cheaper still to buy from Holland than to pay the tour company 150Euros per person to use a credit card

[John Bull]

On 5/10/2023 at 5:30 PM, nini said:

 

Thanks for sharing that interesting point. Nobody charges a fee for using cash in the US.

 

Hi Nini,

 

Just to clarify, there are no charges in the UK for "using" cash.

But for the past 10 years or more UK banks have been charging businesses which pay-in cash.

Use a card? Merchant gets a hit from card charges. 

Pay in cash? Merchant gets a hit from bank charges.

No doubt in due course there'll be merchants who accept only bitcoin.

Or App scans

Or sacks of potatoes.😏

 

JB 🙂

[gnome12]

2 hours ago, John Bull said:

But for the past 10 years or more UK banks have been charging businesses which pay-in cash.

I assume that you mean businesses which deposit cash into their accounts. True?

[John Bull]

5 hours ago, gnome12 said:

I assume that you mean businesses which deposit cash into their accounts. True?

 

Yep. 

 

Back in the days before internet banking I was a local wholesaler in the food industry.

Because their banks started charging them heavily for banking their cash takings, my customers started paying their accounts in cash.

Eventually my bank - Lloyd's - tried to do the same to me, which would have quadrupled my bank charges. So for cheques I switched to a postal a/c with Bank of Scotland (they paid me interest, back in the day when interest was worthwhile) & for the cash I set up a Post Office account - the local Post Office was pleased to get the cash because they paid out a lot of state pensions in cash.

 

A couple of months later Lloyds asked me to return to them & they'd revert to their previous charges.

That left me with a tough decision - do I go back to Lloyds & pay the original charges of about £100 per month, or do I stick with Bank of Scotland & the Post Office and receive about £150 per month interest at the cost of one postage stamp per week.  Lloyds greed lost them my business.

 

JB 🙂.  

[Globaliser]

4 hours ago, John Bull said:

Back in the days before internet banking I was a local wholesaler in the food industry.

Because their banks started charging them heavily for banking their cash takings, my customers started paying their accounts in cash.

Eventually my bank - Lloyd's - tried to do the same to me, which would have quadrupled my bank charges. So for cheques I switched to a postal a/c with Bank of Scotland (they paid me interest, back in the day when interest was worthwhile) & for the cash I set up a Post Office account - the local Post Office was pleased to get the cash because they paid out a lot of state pensions in cash.

 

Similar considerations originally led to big supermarkets starting the "cashback" facility, in the days when many people still used cash for lots of things: if you paid for your shopping using a debit card, the supermarket would offer you the option of taking out some cash at the same time, with that amount added to the debit card charge. The supermarket was basically offering to be an ATM. The supermarket paid a flat fee to the bank for the debit card transaction, so offering cashback to the customer didn't cost it any more money than it was already going to pay. But - crucially - it got a lot of cash off the premises again in their customers' pockets, so that it reduced the supermarket's cash handling costs. For operations of that size, it was more than bank charges: the cost of secure transit for large amounts of cash was significant. Those who thought that this was an innovation designed for the benefit of the customer were no doubt buying bridges too.

 

But those were the days when using a card to pay for anything less than £10 got you looked at like you had two heads. These days, using a card to pay for a 10p transaction is considered normal.

[ontheweb]

1 hour ago, Globaliser said:

 

Similar considerations originally led to big supermarkets starting the "cashback" facility, in the days when many people still used cash for lots of things: if you paid for your shopping using a debit card, the supermarket would offer you the option of taking out some cash at the same time, with that amount added to the debit card charge. The supermarket was basically offering to be an ATM. The supermarket paid a flat fee to the bank for the debit card transaction, so offering cashback to the customer didn't cost it any more money than it was already going to pay. But - crucially - it got a lot of cash off the premises again in their customers' pockets, so that it reduced the supermarket's cash handling costs. For operations of that size, it was more than bank charges: the cost of secure transit for large amounts of cash was significant. Those who thought that this was an innovation designed for the benefit of the customer were no doubt buying bridges too.

 

But those were the days when using a card to pay for anything less than £10 got you looked at like you had two heads. These days, using a card to pay for a 10p transaction is considered normal.

A lot of stores here in the US also would rather have small purchases done by credit card instead of cash as they say there is a coin shortage. There are often signs that say please use exact change or pay by card.

[John Bull]

1 hour ago, Globaliser said:

 

Similar considerations originally led to big supermarkets starting the "cashback" facility, in the days when many people still used cash for lots of things: if you paid for your shopping using a debit card, the supermarket would offer you the option of taking out some cash at the same time, with that amount added to the debit card charge. The supermarket was basically offering to be an ATM. The supermarket paid a flat fee to the bank for the debit card transaction, so offering cashback to the customer didn't cost it any more money than it was already going to pay. But - crucially - it got a lot of cash off the premises again in their customers' pockets, so that it reduced the supermarket's cash handling costs. For operations of that size, it was more than bank charges: the cost of secure transit for large amounts of cash was significant. Those who thought that this was an innovation designed for the benefit of the customer were no doubt buying bridges too.

 

But those were the days when using a card to pay for anything less than £10 got you looked at like you had two heads. These days, using a card to pay for a 10p transaction is considered normal.

 

I used to see that frequently - the customer in front of me at the checkout leaving with more money that when they arrived .

It's only now that I realise why 🙄

 

JB 🙂 

[markeb]

4 hours ago, Globaliser said:

 

Similar considerations originally led to big supermarkets starting the "cashback" facility, in the days when many people still used cash for lots of things: if you paid for your shopping using a debit card, the supermarket would offer you the option of taking out some cash at the same time, with that amount added to the debit card charge. The supermarket was basically offering to be an ATM. The supermarket paid a flat fee to the bank for the debit card transaction, so offering cashback to the customer didn't cost it any more money than it was already going to pay. But - crucially - it got a lot of cash off the premises again in their customers' pockets, so that it reduced the supermarket's cash handling costs. For operations of that size, it was more than bank charges: the cost of secure transit for large amounts of cash was significant. Those who thought that this was an innovation designed for the benefit of the customer were no doubt buying bridges too.

 

But those were the days when using a card to pay for anything less than £10 got you looked at like you had two heads. These days, using a card to pay for a 10p transaction is considered normal.

 

I haven't actually been in a bank lobby in years (I'll be in one in London in July to trade obsolete £20 notes...), but I distinctly remember a time when some US banks were going to charging for in-person services versus using online or ATM services. Not sure if that's still the case. Randomly searching for business accounts, and it's apparently not uncommon for banks to charge businesses for in-person transactions, although there's usually a reasonable number of free transactions first. But it costs the bank to staff a teller window and to count cash. And if they can pass that on, they will. Large cash accounts have to deal with on-premises storage and/or secure (armed in the US) transport. Much less expensive to deal with credit cards and electronic transfers!

 

We're way off the OPs original question, but are electronic transfers now the norm in the UK? Last I looked they were ubiquitous on the continent and writing a check (cheque) was unheard of. I remember a real nightmare trying to send a wire transfer to Norway years ago. My government travel account was designed to revolve around a credit card; the receiving end needed a wire.

[gnome12]

2 hours ago, markeb said:

We're way off the OPs original question, but are electronic transfers now the norm in the UK? Last I looked they were ubiquitous on the continent and writing a check (cheque) was unheard of. I remember a real nightmare trying to send a wire transfer to Norway years ago. My government travel account was designed to revolve around a credit card; the receiving end needed a wire.

I had a bit of an accident in the Netherlands which took me to the emergency department in Dordrecht for an x-ray and a cast. It was a holiday there, so no one in the accounting office. I left all my info and didn’t hear from them until months later, in January or February of the following year, when they sent me a bill completely in Dutch. (I assume that the accountants in processing the year end accounts found the unpaid bill.) I managed to more or less translate it, but then I had great difficulty finding a way to pay it. They didn’t accept credit cards, and at the time I had no way to send a bank-to-bank transfer. Ultimately, we came up with a method, but it was really a pain. 

[Globaliser]

3 hours ago, markeb said:

We're way off the OPs original question, but are electronic transfers now the norm in the UK? Last I looked they were ubiquitous on the continent and writing a check (cheque) was unheard of.

 

They're very common, but many businesses set up arrangements to take debit card payments instead of (or in addition to) electronic transfers - even for business-to-business transactions. Many people (including me) prefer using a debit card because of the amount of authorised push payment fraud that exists. Debit cards give you a level of security about the destination of the funds; if you've made an electronic transfer to the wrong person, whether by accident or because of fraud, it can be very hard to recover the money.

[gumshoe958]

10 hours ago, gnome12 said:

I had a bit of an accident in the Netherlands which took me to the emergency department in Dordrecht for an x-ray and a cast. It was a holiday there, so no one in the accounting office. I left all my info and didn’t hear from them until months later, in January or February of the following year, when they sent me a bill completely in Dutch. (I assume that the accountants in processing the year end accounts found the unpaid bill.) I managed to more or less translate it, but then I had great difficulty finding a way to pay it. They didn’t accept credit cards, and at the time I had no way to send a bank-to-bank transfer. Ultimately, we came up with a method, but it was really a pain. 

The Dutch don’t really do credit cards, as debt is a big no-no in their culture. Obviously many tourist places will take them but I’ve been caught out before in Albert Heijn, the Dutch equivalent of Publix or Tesco, where the only card they accept is Maestro (and some stores don’t even accept cash!).

[gunnywife]

Master Card or Visa?  Are both ok to use in the British Isles?  I know American Express isn't as popular due to the charges.

[John Bull]

1 minute ago, gunnywife said:

Master Card or Visa?  Are both ok to use in the British Isles?  I know American Express isn't as popular due to the charges.

 

Any outlet that takes cards takes M/C and Visa, no worries.🙂

As you say, Amex (and D/C) are accepted in far fewer places - though a lot of outlets in central London accept them

 

JB 🙂 

[phabric]

A few years, I had £ in big amounts from my bank.  While in Winchester, I tried at a couple of banks to exchange £ into smaller amounts, they would not exchange unless I had an account with them.  I finally found a place that they were happy to exchange for me.

[Globaliser]

11 minutes ago, phabric said:

A few years, I had £ in big amounts from my bank.  While in Winchester, I tried at a couple of banks to exchange £ into smaller amounts, they would not exchange unless I had an account with them.  I finally found a place that they were happy to exchange for me.

 

I've had a similar issue at my own bank when trying to do this, which may explain the problem. The bank would not do a straight exchange. I had to pay the larger denomination notes into my account, and then make a cash withdrawal paid out in smaller notes. This is probably why a bank won't do this unless you have an account.

[Island2Dweller]

"(I'll be in one in London in July to trade obsolete £20 notes...)"

Unless you have an account with them, UK banks won't do this.  (Money laundering rules).  You need to visit the Bank of England (weekdays only) in Threadneedle Street, who will change them.