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Is there anyone else old fashioned like myself?


John Findlay

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9 hours ago, Mac_fae_Gillie said:

Losing 5% or of your money before you buy anything thx to exchange, then knowing any not spent meant losing 5% of that.. I not that old fashioned... But I do like the idea of France been French and Spain been Spanish and Blackpool been cheap. Really not seen much cultural change in Europe outside of natural modernisation and I hope that it does not become a melting pot. Viva la Difference..

Pissed me off too. Then I got a Revolut card (look for it on tinterweb). Its like pre-load card but the exchange rate is brilliant, you dont pay commission and you control it all via your mobile app. Load any currncy you want, swap unused currecy back into sterling commission free. Its a Master card do you can use it at tolls, restaurants, cash points, shops. Plus you get cashbach if you use it to shop on-line. 
I even got one for my 14 yr old lad and stick his pocket money in it. Complete game changer. No more ordering currency or queues at the forex. Brilliant!

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6 hours ago, WorldChampions1902 said:




Ah…….good old Travellers Cheques. This thread brings to mind one really special memory. It goes back to 2004 in Lisbon and the final match of the Euro Championship Greece V Portugal. Crap game of football, although one of the standouts was a certain Takis Fyssas whose name would become more significant not long after. I digress.
 
I applied in the UEFA draw for 4 x Tickets for the final, probably a year before the finals and miraculously was successful. I subsequently booked flights and a nice 3 bed apartment in a top Lisbon hotel, with the intention being to spend 10 nights in Lisbon as a family holiday, with the match sandwiched in the middle. 
 
Fast forward to arrival day at the hotel and it turns out that my apartment has been double-booked! After heated discussions at a very busy reception, they punt us into a 2 bed apartment and ask me to come back in a couple hours. Two hours later, I return to reception and they fess up and as it’s their mess, give me the keys to their penthouse suite on the top floor. 4 x bedrooms all with en-suite bathroom, big TV’s in all the rooms, massive kitchen, dining room and huge lounge. And two big mini-bars which they make complimentary for the length of my stay as an additional apology. The lounge was so big that it had three sets of double sliding doors onto the balcony that you could play long-bangers in! Wow! I had won the lottery.  To the travellers cheques.
 
Before leaving the U.K., I had decided to not take my credit card/bank card but have enough Euros for the first few days and then cash Travellers Cheques. Schoolboy error. The Final was played on a Sunday, so the Friday before, I popped into a mainstream banking branch only to discover that they want to charge me 35% (yes 35%) commission for cashing into Euros. I therefore beat a hasty retreat and decide that I will cash them at the hotel which has its own Foreign Exchange service. As I still have a decent amount of Euros left, no panic, or so I thought. Second schoolboy error.
 
Fast forward to match-day Sunday and midday, I make the trip to the hotel reception. My timing couldn’t be worse. A coach load of VIP guests of match-sponsors, Canon has just arrived and they are checking in. I get in the queue and a few stragglers queue behind me. Eventually, I reach the front of the desk, only to be told that the hotel cannot change Travellers Cheques at the moment as they have insufficient funds. I explain that I have no money and need Euros now as I am going to the match. They refuse and it all gets heated but they ain’t budging. At that point a voice behind me says, “what’s the problem Jock?”. I turn around and there is this elderly bloke in pin-striped suit. I explain my predicament to him, I have no cash and I am taking my family to the game. He tells me he is a guest of Canon and is going to the game as well. He then goes into his inside pocket, pulls out his wallet and says, “how much do you need?” I explained that I had asked them to exchange cheques for 200 Euros and before I could finish my sentence, he peels off 200 Euros from his wallet and says, is that enough? I was totally gobsmacked at a complete stranger making such a magnanimous gesture. The only thing he asked for was my room number and said I will see you in the hotel bar after the match. I couldn’t believe it! It gets more intriguing.
 
After the match, we soaked up the atmosphere in the Lisbon streets on the walk back from the metro station. Incredible scenes. Thousands of Portuguese people on the streets partying - after losing the game! Eventually gets into my hotel, I go straight to reception and successfully exchange my Travellers Cheques at a ‘reasonable’ commission rate. I then head to the hotel bar and my benefactor and his son are already there. It is bedlam, so I invite them both up to our penthouse suite - bearing in mind, I have unlimited free bevvy in my 2 x sizeable Mini-bars. At this point, we have finally introduced ourselves and his name is Derek. As we enter into my millionaires pad, Derek blurts out, “Wow! What an apartment. He asks me what I do for a living (nothing special BTW). I pop open a bottle of Champers and whilst I’m doing that, Derek picks up my digital camera that I had placed on the lounge coffee table as I arrived. He starts talking about it really knowledgeably and I explain that it’s a new model of camera that I bought for the trip as I wanted to get some decent snaps. At this point, I ask him if he is a professional photographer and he coyly tells me “no” he is the Chief Executive of Jessops!
 
His full name is Derek Hine and I shall never forget that wonderful gesture

:clap: 

 

 

Tho I'd've been fecked as soon as he called me Jock. :yadayada: 

Edited by ri Alban
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19 hours ago, ri Alban said:

No been abroad for ages. Can you use your Bank card/Credit Card at the swipy thingy?

 

Varies by country but pre-covid there was an emergence of travel debit cards such as Revolut that you could top up using a mobile app, switch cash to local currency and avoid a lot of the exchange costs, the free of charge revolut cards only drawback was the restriction of £200 a month for cash withdrawals, the paid metal version of the card gave you the ability to withdraw £600 in cash with unlimited card transactions but cost something like 12 a month. 

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2 hours ago, Ribble said:

 

Varies by country but pre-covid there was an emergence of travel debit cards such as Revolut that you could top up using a mobile app, switch cash to local currency and avoid a lot of the exchange costs, the free of charge revolut cards only drawback was the restriction of £200 a month for cash withdrawals, the paid metal version of the card gave you the ability to withdraw £600 in cash with unlimited card transactions but cost something like 12 a month. 

Careful, language like that might confuse someone who calls it "the swipy thingy" @ri Alban ;)

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