Shopaholic? Me?

The great bit about holidays is the shopping – obviously!! However conversion rate optimization isn’t always possible. First of all… leaving exchanging money till the airport is quite the opposite as you most likely get the worst rates possible. If you pay by credit card, you are also at your banks mercy. There is also the issue that if you exchange too much cash, you might lose out when converting money back to your own currency. Or worse still not exchange enough and have to find a high street Shylock to exchange your cash. The best bit of advice is never accept a shop or hotels own exchange rate as that can be quite costly to say the least.

I guess that in terms of costs, perhaps that is one of the few benefits of the Euro. Still give me the Lire, the Franc, the Mark any day. There was an element of fun with having a foreign currency in a foreign market!!