Is there any ATM for Postfinance card to withdraw GBP in London City Airport?

Finance, Taxes, Banking, Insurance and Retirement
21
Ahh, not as bad as I thought.

22
oh....there is actually a possibility to withdraw GBP from an ATM in Zürich Airport? It's something new for me...always thought it is just Euro that is available...

Anyone else can second this option?

23
jttraveller,

In terms of your question re commission, I use UBS and the exchange rate is extremely poor fior withdrawing abroad, I suspect PF will be similar. With UBS there is also a 5chf cost associated with the withdrawal. Depends how much cash you need to withdraw but it is an expensive way of doing it and its best to make one large withdrawal rather than lots of small ones.

24
Ok so look at the back of your card and see if it says PLUS

That means you can take out money from cashiers that take plus cards (visa for example).

25

Lots of useful posts but who has actully been to LCY and tried it. Shell has and I have - PostCards do not work even though the plus logo's etc are there.

I suspect these machines are run by the currency exchange bids in the airport and probably the PO won't pay their commission .

Any ATM outside a bank works for sure. Motorway service station (LINK) machines do not take PostCards.

To the OP, find a highstreet bank and their ATM will work.

26
I managed to locate a few banks in London using the "Plus" locator. Seems Royal Bank of Scotland or HSBC will do....but am still a bit wary about the possible high charge of commission or bad exchange rate. Sigh....I remember last time using the german Deutsche Bank card in Stansted Airport...the rate was great without commision. Any comment? Well...maybe everything in CH just costs more...

I want to ask again if anyone actually withdraw GBP in CH ATM here? It was suggested here that one can do so in ZH Airport. Anyone else did that before? Thanks for the sharing of experience!

27
I can also confirm, having been in London for the past 2 weeks, that any machines with the 'Plus' logo will accept normal PF cards.

As for avalability, it seems that most major high street machines accept Plus cards - certainly any Barclays or HSBC machines seem to.

28
Fixed that for you... unless you know better?

29
Nope, never had cause to use the City one - but if a machine has a plus logo on it, not sure why would it not accept one particular type of plus card in one certain location?

30

See his post above (#25)

31
The travelex issue is interesting. I'll check that out on my next flight. Never had a problem personally. I usually stock up on landing.

Yes there is a charge unless you work for an employer with a deal with PF, have 25k in assets with them or have a mortgage over 200k with them.

Alternatively you can take out the Amex travel card which is a maestro card. You can load it in GBP and load it from an online only GBP account linked to your CHF PF online set for an extra 4CHF per month.

The advantage is the Amex travel card is a maestro card. Withdrawals may not be as competitive as with the normal PF card.

32
So let me do a bit of update regarding the issue.

I did able to withdraw GBP with my PF card at the London City Airport. I had however changed my account type from Online set to Plus set before I left (on advice of Postfinance). According to the lady on the phone, it would then free me from any commision. But the catch is you must have minimum 25k CHF in the account or else you got to pay certain fees every month.

I managed to get the rate of 1 GBP = 1.74 CHF. Not sure whether it is the best rate but it is better than cash exchanging at the counter there.

Hope it clears up and I welcome any other suggestion on how to get GBP for a quick trip to London.

p/s: On a lighter note, the fish and chip and English breakfast are still as good as ever....

33
In terms of cost, it seems cheaper to withdraw at an atm in the country rather than exchange at a bank or a currency converter. Also alot easier. There are fees so try and work out what you need and make only one withdrawl

34
I have used my normal PF card several times in the UK and South Africa without any problem. As long as the ATM has a PLUS sign it should work.

35
Cheers - missed that one

36
I've always done this (been travelling for years). Quite frankly, I can't be arsed to quible over whether I can save 2 CHF here or there.

The only exception is that when I can, I go to a Credit Suisse (my bank) cash machine to get Euros out (e.g. at Zurich Airport above the railway, time permitting). But only if I remember and if walking past a CS cash point that gives Euros (the two rarely happen together ).

There's always a cash point or two at the destination airport, so it has never been a problem.