What's the best way to avoid bank charges withdrawing money from an ATM in Tenerife?

[tripadviser]

Hi all


Last week I took 260 Euro from my Natwest bank account with my debt card. The bank I used was Caja Canarias bank. Today I looked at my bank statement and I see I was charged £4.45 for the transaction. Is there a cheaper way to take money from my UK account with my debt card

Many thanks

[Tenerife Villas]

you can get a non resident account at sol bank and they allow you free monthly direct debits from your uk bank the account costs about €7.30 per quater. I used to use nationwide when it was free to draw from any cashpoint abroad but now they charge 1% of the transaction and a fee for using the atm of about £1.50, so if you are in tenerife for sometime it is worth getting a sol bank account and they do everything in english.

[tub]

nation wide are still the best of the debt cards according to martins money pages

[Tenerife Villas]

nation wide are still the best of the debt cards according to martins money pages
you are proberly right if you are only on holiday, my problem using them was I had a uk wage going in to nationwide and lived in tenerife so it was cheaper to open the spanish account to access uk money for the long term.

[tfs1]

Non sterling ATM withdrawals using the Nationwide Flexaccount card incur a charge of 2% of the amount taken out plus a £1. I still use it (rarely) but the charges still stick in the throat as we used the cards for years fee free !

We use the Nationwide Visa (Gold) for majority of our purchases, even smallish amounts (€10+) in shops where before we would have paid in Euros, Visa Gold still gives you almost commercial rate and no fees - for the time being.

[CIM]

You can actually get charged up to 10€ for a withdrawal from one Spanish cash machine from another Spanish bank here!!!! Talk about a rip off!

[Leam_Lin]

With a nationwide flexi a/c, I have withdrawn 300 euros & have been charged £249.88 + £4.99 + £1. exchange rate on the same day from an exchange shop was 1.19 euro to the £. Usually works out about the same exchange rate in the end.

[karinagal]

For me, the easiest way to avoid bank charges when taking money from an ATM in Tenerife is to use a prepaid card such as those supplied by Caxton FX amongst many others. Load it from my UK account, no charge to withdraw money or pay for goods. For eating out or shopping, I have a Santander Zero credit card which has no transaction/conversion charge when used in the euro zone.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

[Norm de Plume]

Citibank euro account - entirely free to transfer money and use ATMs (cash/debit card), plus commercial rate of exchange.

[d41pse]

If you have a Santander account in the UK and deposit a minimum of £1000/month you can withdraw cash for free and at a good rate at a Santander ATM in mainland Spain, the Canaries or the Balearic Islands.

[Leam_Lin]

Whereabouts could I open one of these Citibank euro accounts.

[Norm de Plume]

Google Citibank for details.

[Norm de Plume]

Just heard Citibank are going to charge £5 per month from end of June unless you keep £2000 in the account. I shall be kicking mine into touch.

[grumps]

I use my nationwide gold card for purchases and a Fairfx sterling prepaid mastercard...they charge 1.4% plus £1 per withdrawl...i worked out i got net 1.19 last week when the kiosks were doing 1.18 so it works out well.

[Balcony]

We have a non-residential bank account with Santander and transfer money to cover bills and take out money as needed. The transfer can cost upwards of £9.95, so best to avoid small value transfers.

Often we just take cash and put it in the safe and change at any of the exchange shops which offer a good rate. We bank Euros to the bank account and use the rest for spends.

[lesbroz]

I bank with LLoyds in the UK and in Tenerife. There is no charge to transfer moeny between the two. Therefore, I transfer money to Tenerife when the exchange rate is good. It costs nothing to withdraw money with my debit card using any servired cash machine or going into the office in Fanabe.

[edsa]

I have used transferwise for a few transactions and found them very good. You need a bank account in the UK in your name and one in spain/tenerife to transfer it to, you just need the name and Iban number. They give the same rate as you see on xe.com which is the best.
For a transfer of up to £300 they only charge £1 then it goes up for larger amounts in 50p increments.
I did two transfers before they asked for proof of identity for which I uploaded a copy of my passport, quick and easy if you've got it ready to go.
It can take two to three days for the money to appear in your nominated account but that's been fine with me. Transfers can work in the other direction too. Take a look with this link and you will get a free transfer. http://www.transferwise.com/r/5752

[karinagal]

Caxton FX don't charge for international transfers. I use them all the time for sending money to my Solbank account. I also use their currency cards for spending money as there is no charge to use their euro card at atm's or to pay in shops/restaurants.


The undisputed Queen of de-nial