Buying Euros and Dollars at Heathrow: Holiday Money Costs Exceptionally High
- Written by: Gary Howes
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Image © Adobe Stock
The cost of buying holiday money at Heathrow airport remains exceptionally high with significant spreads being charged for those looking to pick up cash prior to departure.
A check of FX rates at Heathrow this week revealed spreads as high as 21%, which was higher than the 18% spread we observed in March.
The holiday money bureaux de change we visited at Terminal 4 offered to buy Sterling at USD 1.5879 to 1 GBP when the spot exchange rate was 1.2862. This implies a spread of 23%, or 3000 pips.
To be clear: this does not mean they are selling dollars to you at this rate, it means you are paying 1.5879 dollars to buy one pound. When converting pounds to dollars at this spread the effective exchange rate works out 0.9854.
By comparison, competitive online cash and holiday money providers were offering a GBPUSD exchange rate of 1.2752.
For euros, the rate was at EUR 1.4250 to 1 GBP which works out at 2690 pips from the spot rate at the time. When converting from pounds into euros, the exchange rate works out at roughly 0.8870, a level well below parity!
By contrast, the rate on offer at competitive online holiday money providers stood at 1.1450.
The other rates showed it would cost you 2.419 Australian dollars to buy a pound and 11.701 yuan.
It costs 29.386 South African rand to do the same and 6.041 Qatari Riyal.
You would have to pay 6.215 Saudi Riyal and 56.118 Thai Baht.
The snapshot of holiday money rates was taken at a bureaux de change in the arrivals section of Terminal 4, we suspect the rates are more competitive in the departures section, as suggested by our previous snapshot taken in March.
Heathrow's bureaux de change stalls are operated by Travelex, which won a bid in 2015 for the exclusive rights to selling foreign exchange at the UK's largest airport.
A lack of competition in the terminals is therefore a key driver of the substantially high costs involved when purchasing holiday money. It is however worth noting that Travelex offers better rates when ordering online or prebooking money for collection when arriving at your terminal.
