British Holidaymakers Shun Credit Cards Overseas
According to the Post Office, an estimated £34 billion will be spent overseas by British holidaymakers this year. With budget airlines offering discounted flights to almost anywhere in the World, more and more of us will venture further away from home this year as well. Strangely, however, given the relative peace and security that credit cards can offer us on our overseas trips, 47% of British holidaymakers will look to spend cash while we are on our overseas holiday while just over 33% of all of overseas spending will be put on our “flexible friend” during this period.
 Many British holidaymakers cite the reason why they have elected not to use their credit cards while overseas is because they do not want to pay charges to their UK credit card issuers for using the card. For example, ATM cash withdrawal fees are charged on cash withdrawals made on your credit card overseas. A number of holidaymakers have also said that the uncertain and unfavorable exchange rate when converting the local currency transaction back into pounds has also put them off using their UK credit cards while on holiday overseas. For those traveling to some of the World’s more exotic locations, such as the Far East, potential credit card fraud seems to be a driving factor why most holidaymakers would prefer not to use their UK credit cards while on holiday.
Even though a large number of UK holidaymakers are choosing to spend cash on holiday, rather than use their credit card, not as many of those who do decide to use cash on holiday are making use of traveler’s cheques – with traveler’s cheque sales down approximately 12% in the last year. Overall this would appear to indicate that UK holidaymakers are comfortable with the idea of taking large sums of cash in their pocket when going overseas on holiday and are not overly concerned with the security issues that this may cause, which would certainly appear to indicate a new trend.
While it is certainly true that changing your pounds for the local currency of your holiday destination might appear to be less expensive than using your credit card overseas, what many UK travelers don’t seem to be considering is that if you lose your cash while on holiday overseas you are not going to be able to replace the case, something you may well be able to do with a UK credit card. As a result, if security is an issue to you, why not make the best of both worlds by using both your cash and credit cards when you’re next on holiday.
Richard Smith
3rd August 2006
More Information:
More UK Credit Card News
Try our  feed
|
BluePink 
