Martin Lewis is urging Brits travelling abroad this summer to pay in the local currency to avoid on-the-fly conversion rates. Speaking on his BBC podcast, he took a call from a listener asking whether it was better to make certain payments in sterling or in the local currency, specifically regarding booking accommodation via travel sites such as Booking.com.
Martin said: "Whatever type of plastic you have, the safest thing to do is pay in the foreign currency. If you're in Europe, it's euros, if you're in America, it's dollars, whatever country you are in, pay in the local currency. The reason is your card is then doing the conversion, and that is at a known rate. Many times if you are paying on a foreign website, if you say, I'll pay in pounds, it means they are doing the currency conversion for you and the rates you get are generally - I don't know specifically for Booking.com - far worse that you would get converting yourself."
Refund advice for cancelled flights
It's a tumultuous summer for holiday travel, with particular anxiety around hotel refunds if flights don't take off. Martin was also asked whether you definitely receive your money back, even for a hotel booking. His answer was clear: "No, no – and this is what I think people need to be very aware of."
He added: "If you have booked a package holiday, where you booked everything in one, and under the Package Holiday Regulations and rules and protections, generally, if your flight went, you will get everything back. So actually, at the moment, package holidays give you a certain level of extra surety that you wouldn't get if you did a DIY booking – where you book your hotel and flight separately. Because the point is, if you lose your flight in your DIY booking, there is nothing wrong with your hotel. The issue is you can't get there. Your hotel is still there. It's not faulty. It's not cancelling. So you don't get those consumer rights."
Travel insurance warning
On travel insurance, Martin added: "Of those, only a few would have covered you for the knock-on eventuality of your flight being cancelled due to jet fuel, and then your hotel costs. Only about three or four – most of those were packaged bank accounts where it is linked to your bank account. Only one standalone provider. So we need to be blunt: at the moment, there is a big risk in those circumstances."
