Sadly, buying currency from a bureau de change in the UK on a credit or debit card isn’t always treated as a UK transaction. All credit cards and some debit cards charge an additional fee on top of what you pay the bureau de change.

The cards that charge...

• All Credit Cards. All credit cards charge a fee of around 2.5% (minimum £3) when you buy foreign currency; it's treated like withdrawing cash from an ATM. In addition, you could be charged interest from the day you make the purchase, even if it's repaid in full at the end of the month. See a full table of charges
  
  
• Visa Debit cards. If you have one of the following debit cards, you'll be charged a 2%-ish fee. The banks that charge issue 'Visa Debit' (previously Delta) cards, though that doesn’t mean every Visa Debit card charges.
  
  

Got a card that charges?

There are a number of options...

• Use a different card if possible. This is the simple option.
  
  
• With debit cards withdraw cash and pay with that. Take the money out of a UK cash machin with a debit card and use that to pay at a high street bureau de change and you'll avoid the fee, though check the gain isn't defeated by a worse rate.
  
  
• Spend on the card itself. With most of the cards you're likely to be better off by just spending on it while overseas, than buying foreign cash with it.
  
  The big exceptions are Lloyds and Abbey debit cards, which if you spend on them abroad will slap ANOTHER charge on top every time you spend in a shop, as well as the normal foreign currency fees - these are the DOUBLE cards from hell.

This tool whizzes around online currency bureaux to find the best exchange rates including all fees.

If you want foreign cash, the key question is "How many euros/dollars/shekels will you give me, after all charges and fees, for my pounds?", then go with whoever gives the most. TravelMoneyMax.com does this for you, searching 23 major online foreign currency bureaux in seconds

It factors in exchange rates, commission fees and any delivery costs. TravelMoneyMax.com repeatedly gathers information from bureaux's websites throughout the day. This means there is a very slight chance the prices will be a few minutes out of date after a rate change.

Always double check the deal before buying your currency

How to use it

Enter the currency you need, then either select how much you're willing to pay e.g. "I want £100 worth of dollars" or how much you want e.g. "I want €200". Then pick delivery, or collection. TravelMoneyMax.com displays the prices from online bureaux de change, taken directly from their websites, ranked in order of how much cold hard cash you'll get.

Who's included?

The Travel Money Maximiser only searches online providers; primarily as it's a web tool and these are much easier to search. Luckily though, many high street providers and banks now offer their rates online, though you may have to go instore to collect.

The providers currently included are: Best Exchange, Thomas Exchange UK, Thomas Exchange Global, No1 Currency, ICE, Post Office Online, Tesco, Travelex, M&S, Natwest, HSBC, FX4You, FairFx, Interchange FX, Crown Currency Exchange, Travel Money Services, Bupa, Saga, Nationwide, Co-op, Travelcare, Online FX, First Direct.

What's Buy-back?

A few providers also offer to change back your left over foreign cash back into British Pounds. The rates for this will always be worse than the other way round; however, attempt to do it at big high street names and they'll be even worse! To do this by post, you often have to send the currency back by registered or special delivery in order to guarantee it reaches the bureau.

The Currency Convertor uses the average of all rates included in the TravelMoneyMax.com tool. All conversions utilise the 'Pound to foreign currency' rate, meaning a calculation between two non-UK currencies (eg. Euros to US Dollars) will be converted back into pounds, and then into the final currency.

For Example... if 1 CowellDollar = 2 WalshPounds, AND 1 WalshPound = 4 ColeShekels

This means the currency converter would show 1 CowellDollar = 8 ColeShekels, even though the direct rate may be slightly better than this.

This leads to a slightly worse rate than doing this conversion directly between the two currencies. However, it is a useful guide to the level of foreign cash you'd get if you did the conversion for real today