Should I be bringing cards or cash?

A question about : Should I be bringing cards or cash?

I'm visiting the states this summer and have been reading up on exchange rates. The Ј --> $ is expected to get much worse in the coming months so I'm thinking about getting some money changed now. What do the people of MSE do for money when they go on holiday? Credit cards? Cash? Both?

Best answers:

• Mostly credit card, the wife insists we take a few hundred cash but we end up paying cash for everything for the last few days to get rid of it. Your guess is as good as anyone's about which way the dollar is going.
• The dollar dropped quick significantly the past month or so, we have a traip in June, and priced everything up when it was 170 to the Ј now its only 150. I did buy $500 at the time, on a cash card, so that helps.
  I remember asking the same question as you at the time, and everyone said not to buy, what difference will a few cents make? will it's now 20 to the Ј different, and it does make a difference!
  So if you have reason to believe the rate will drop more, and you have some cash now it cant' hurt to buy some now, some later maybe?
  Obviously you also run the risk of loosing out if the rate goes back up. I'm hoping it won't keep dropping!!
• You don't know which way the exchange rate is going to go.
  There's no point believing one set of experts when there's another set taking the opposite view.
  You're not a currency dealer. Don't pretend to be.
  Focus on minimising the cost of exchanging money. Halifax Clarity. Kalixa prepay. You can control this. You can't do anything about the currency markets because you don't know which way they're going to go.
• I normally use First Rate FX as their rates are competitive with no fees or commission.
• what i tend to do is check out the prices in the place i am going and look at the current rate and work off that