A Holiday Special!

0:00BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Martin Lewis and this is the cunningly named The Martin Lewis Podcast. I do wonder what that's going to be about. Now, usually much of it comes from our BBC Radio 5 live show with Adrian Charles. And this one is extra special. Oh, yes, indeedy. Because I'm on a break, so it's a good excuse for a Best Bits pod. The producers have put together what they think are some of the most pertinent and still relevant elements of the podcast we've done so far this year. Let's just hope they're right. Though worth noting, if I do mention specific products, do be aware they could have changed, so double-check before you take any action.

0:42We don't want you listening to February's Best Buys once you're in August. Appropriately, this pod is a holiday special, with my holiday hacks, the cheapest way to spend abroad, car hiring insurance tips, and much, much more. Play the theme tune.

1:08Where do we start on holidays? Well, let's do passports. Passports and GHICs, this is really important for everybody to understand. So, if you are going abroad this year, I want you all to check yours and all members of the family's passports for two things. for when you go the day you arrive, will you have over six months left on your passport of validity? And will your passport be under, in fact, for the day you leave, not the day you arrive? Will you have over six months left for the day you leave? So you've arrived, you've been there two weeks on that last day. And will you have under, your passport is under 10 years old?

1:51Now, those are two crucial facts that may not be the same. Now, the reason I do those rules is those are the most harsh rules that you've got out there. So let's just talk about the European Union, which is where the vast majority of people in the UK go when they go abroad. If you're travelling to the EU, your passport needs to be less than 10 years old on the day you enter. Some countries, it's the day you leave. And valid for at least three months after the day you plan to leave. Now, this 10 year thing confuses people. You can't do it anymore. But what you used to be able to do is when you renewed your passport, you could renew it months early.

2:23and you could get the months that you had left on your current passport added to your next passport so it's over 10 years old. But many countries now won't accept a passport that's over 10 years old, even if it's still valid. So there's two separate factors. How old is the passport and how long do you have left? Now, that's three months. In India, to get into India, your passport needs to be valid for at least six months on the day you enter. You need two blank pages for your visa. So you've got to be careful on your passport. Check your passports now. Now, what you don't want to do is check this the week before you go away and go, oh, my, I'm not going to get in.

2:57So check your passports now. Another check I would make is your European health insurance card or your global health insurance card. They're basically virtually exactly the same thing, although Australia is partially covered on the global health insurance card. What this is, it's a card that means if you're travelling mainly in the European Union, but a couple of other countries as well, you get health care the same as a local. So if it's free for them, it's free for you. If they can go to a GP for free, you can go to a GP for free. Slightly different in Australia, mainly in the European Union, it works that way.

3:30Everybody should have an EHIC or its replacement, the GHIC, and you should have a valid one. So I want people to check their dates, especially if you have a European health insurance card, the old card, because those are the ones that are now, there are millions of them that are out of date. Check your valid date. You can renew that for free. You should never pay anyone to get an EHIC or a GHIC card, or it's now a GHIC, sorry. keep using the wrong terms. The EHIC was replaced by the GHIC, so when you renew your EHIC, it will now be a GHIC, Global Health Insurance Card. You should never pay anyone.

3:59Go onto the NHS website. Make sure every member of the family has one. You don't need to have them with you if something happens to you, but it's always far easier if you've got them with you, carry them with you when you go out, when you're out of the country, and it gives you a valuable level of protection. It's only in state-run hospitals and state-run GPs that you can use it, but it's absolutely crucial to have. So those are my two start checks. Where do I apply to that? There are lots of links. The simplest is go to the NHS website. This is the problem. There are many shyster sites, and I use that word deliberately.

4:30What they do, it's a grey area of the law. So they advertise on search engines, and they often say it's a fast track. There's no fast track on GHIC. There's no fast track. Or they often say, you know, this is the GHIC site. You go in, they'll charge you£20, and literally you'll enter your data, and then they'll feed your data into the official system for you, but they'll charge you£20 for doing it. It's an absolutely pointless... Everyone's got to make a living, I know, but imagine getting up in the morning and that being your job. That's what you do. I've had long discussions with lawyers over the years whether I'm allowed to say shyster or not.

5:06I can't call it a scam because it isn't a scam. I will say that again. I can't call it a scam because it isn't a scam. Shyster is a quasi-legal way, immoral way of operating, and I believe it is an immoral way of operating. And you have to be warned about these shyster sites. So I'm not, there are other legit addresses, but the easiest for me is do it via the NHS or do it via gov.uk because then you're absolutely certain what you're going to be getting. But I mean, the same happens to passports and visas and driving licence all have shyster sites who advertise where you pay a fee or a fee over the top.

5:43If you're applying for your ESTA to go to the States, there's shyster sites. so you'll pay three times the actual price. It's more difficult when there is a real fee because then people don't know what the fee should be so they don't know they're being charged 100 quid that it should only be 10 quid type thing. Mel's going to Egypt. Best to wait to get there to exchange currency. I heard you can play with dollars, euros and pounds. Is this correct? Well, there's a couple of questions in there, aren't there? Well, generally you can pay on a card in Egypt and as you can generally hear, using the cheapest cards are cheaper than Bureau de Changes generally.

6:15But if you want to go to a bureau de change, you want to change your money. So people always ask me, should I wait till I get there? My answer is only if you have specialist knowledge. So if you're going to a country that you regularly go to and you know there's a local bureau de change that will give you exceptionally good rates, go for it. If you don't, I would change my money before I went. And the reason I would do that is I would go on to a travel money comparison site, which is comparing 30 or 40 bureaus, and I would get yourself the best rates. And generally, the best UK bureau rates, because you're doing a comparison, you've got a widespread, will beat your local bureau in the place you happen to be holidaying.

7:02Because one of them is a comparison and one of them is location specific and just random, will it be good or bad? so my general rule would be unless you know something about that location and know that happens to be they always give incredible rates there and I'd question how they're doing it but then I would just if you want to change your money change it here then at least you've got certainty that you've done a comparison you've been able to do it that way round I've got podcast producer Simon with me absolutely delighted to be back the week after I've been on holiday we've done this topic it's just to spite you don't go away again man you're not allowed before I get to your questions though, Simon, I just want to do a reminder of what we talked about on the pod with travel insurance a couple of weeks ago.

7:43The golden rule is always get your travel insurance ASAB as soon as you book. And the reason for that is pretty simple. Half of the use of travel insurance is to protect you in case something happens before you go that can stop you going. If you leave it to the last minute. You don't have that protection. And as I said many times before, every summer, someone gets in touch with me that something's happened. It's usually a horrible illness. You know, they're going to need cancer treatment or they've got leukemia or something like that has happened. That means they're not going to be able to go away.

8:17They haven't got their travel insurance. The hotel or the flight are saying, no, you can't have a refund because you didn't book with cancellation. And they don't have to give you a refund because the flight's still available. The hotel's still available. The problem is the fact that you can't travel, not the fact that there's a lack of availability on the room. And they say, what can I do? And I feel impotent because the answer is that's what travel insurance is for. That's why you get ASAB. So I know you've got travel insurance questions for me. But before we do that, if you have booked a holiday and you don't have travel insurance, get your travel insurance now.

8:46If you're booking a holiday, get your travel insurance straight away afterwards. And if you're going to book a holiday, remember, you do your travel insurance ASAB. Now, what questions you got? Elaine wants to know, we have annual travel insurance that expires in September 2025. We've just booked a trip for September 25, but the insurance will have expired. Would a new annual one cover a trip that has already been booked? Yes, a new annual one would cover a trip that's already been booked. What you could do is you can get the travel insurance now and you can book it to start the day your old travel insurance policy ends and it should cover you for a year onwards and you should be able to do that.

9:25The only slight issue is if it's with a different company, there can be jurisdictional questions of arguing depending what happens when, who covers you. So what I would probably do in that circumstance, even though it may not be the very cheapest way because there may be a cheaper policy than your existing policy, is I would probably sign up now for another year when your existing policy ends with your existing insurer and then whatever happens, you're covered. And that would cover you for the following year. I mean, I should say, if you're not planning to go away again after that September trip until after September 2026, then you could just get a single trip cover to cover you for when you go away.

10:01And Lynne's asked a question, and we've got a lot of questions about this. She asked for the best travel insurance for over 70s. Travel insurance gets very expensive the older that you get. Now, there's a couple of ways to do it. some of the packaged bank accounts like Nationwide or Virgin have travel insurance that covers people who are older without much of a premium at all. And it is worth looking at those as long as you're going to use them for the other insurance like the mobile and the breakdown. If not, it can still be cheap. It just depends, is the answer. I mean, I would be checking for really dirt cheap policies.

10:32And these are bog standard, no thrills. You know, I'm not talking there's any great bells and whistles with them and they don't have the you know not really collected the feedback places like cover wise bronze lever guard flexi bronze avanti admiral stay sure are all worth looking at for um older people that you can still get roughly similar prices to people under age 65 it's 65 which is the crucial point once you're getting over 80 though it does get very difficult kakotas has asked a question about travel insurance for pre-existing conditions they want to know why it has skyrocketed so much since Brexit and Covid.

11:09I mean just insurance premiums have gone up so much generally. I don't know that pre-existing conditions have gone up. I think what we've had is we've had a change of policy where the regulator has told firms that they must signpost people who have pre-existing conditions to specialists if they don't have cheap policies. And I think what may have happened is some of the normal insurers may have then priced at a premium the pre-existing conditions because they're not really covering it. So I would always first, if you've got a pre-existing condition, go on to a normal travel insurance comparison site to just see if standard travel insurance will cover you for your condition.

11:42It depends on the severity of the condition and when it was. And always make sure you declare it. There's no point getting travel insurance policy that doesn't declare your pre-existing condition. It arguably could leave you uncovered if you did. If you're struggling, then there's a couple of specialist pre-existing condition comparison sites. Medical travel compared. is one with a wide range of insurers. And I'd also check paying too much as well. So they would be the two sites, medical travel compared and paying too much. And Hans has asked for advice on what to do if you don't get what was promised or what was advertised to you.

12:19It always surprises me that people don't realise that travel insurance is a regulated product. And like all financially regulated products, that means that if you have a problem with the travel insurer, you think you haven't been treated fairly, you don't get what you think you were promised or something goes wrong, you have a right to go to the Free Financial Ombudsman Service for it to adjudicate. Now, that can be even as simple as you've put a claim in, they say that your claim isn't valid, you think what they're saying is wrong because they've got the facts wrong or they're adjudicating it the wrong way.

12:47Even on a claim, you can then take that claim to the Free Financial Ombudsman Service. I would always tell the company that you're planning to do that in advance because, being honest, they have to pay if you go to the Financial Ombudsman and sometimes it makes them think with a little bit more clarity about whether they should be settling, whether the ombudsman is likely to order in your favour anyway, in which case they're going to have to give you what they would give you anyway and pay the ombudsman on top. So I think it's worth letting them know in advance that you're going to do that, but you always have to complain first to the insurer, but once you've complained to the insurer, if they are rejecting what you want and you don't think you've been treated fairly or you don't think you've got what you would offer or you have any other problems, once you've complained to the insurer, you can go to the free financial ombudsman service, even about travel insurance.

13:30That brings to the end the special quickfire travel insurance round. Thank you. How did I pass? Yeah, flying colours. Literally flying colours. Kaimi wants to know about car hire. They ask, how do you stop car hire companies charging extra fees when you pick up the car? Well, this is the car hire excess insurance trap that many get caught out on. Basic car insurance is included in the hire yet at the pickup desk you'll often hear. Hello, senor. And that's someone in Germany. Hello, senor. you will need the excess insurance. If you don't get the excess insurance, scare tactic if you don't get the excess.

14:05I'm fine. Let me move into the microphone to do this. If you don't buy our excess insurance, even if you get one scratch on the car, it could cost you a thousand. Yeah, you generally get that type of thing, a rear fewer sell on the excess. And the problem is, especially if you bought cheap car hire, what they're trying to charge you, it could be 20 quid a day, It could be more than you're actually paying for the car hire for this excess insurance. And they will give you loads of scare tactics on top. So what I would always suggest you do is you get yourself a standalone excess insurance policy before you go, which instead of 20 quid a day could be about two quid a day.

14:43There's a good comparison site. Money Maxim has a comparison site where you can go and find it. If you use car hire a lot, you can actually get annual excess insurance for car hire. but even if you do do that expect the person at the desk who is likely on commission to hard sell you to try and put you off to tell you it won't work or to try and make you jump through hoops so you're going to need to be prepared to leave a refundable deposit of probably a thousand pounds on a credit card a credit card not a debit card they generally won't accept debit cards you need to have a credit card if you're doing this.

15:19It will usually need to be in the name of the person who booked, though in some cases it will need to be in the name of the main driver. If not, they may not accept it because they're trying to make you not be able to do this. So generally, I would always have the main driver be the person who is doing the booking and who has the credit card when you're getting your car out in the first place. Once you've gone through this and successfully navigated it once or twice. I mean, I do it and I find it really easy now because I just, no, thank you. I've got one of these. No, thank you. Yes, here's my credit card.

15:51Yes, I'll pay the deposit. Thank you very much. And you can get through it. And I think they can sort of tell on the desk those people who know what they're doing and those people who don't know what they're doing. And there've been times when I've been at a desk getting car hire and there's been someone, some British people on the next desk and I hear it's going through. And I have to tell you, you can let me know what you think. Do I intervene? It's hard to intervene when you're me because if they know who you are, It's a bit embarrassing, it looks like. But on the other hand, that just really annoys me.

16:16And I'm going, you've got your excess insurance. It's fine. Just don't get that extra policy. Anyway, I'll probably stop there. It was a long answer. But a good one. We're talking about holiday money. We're talking about far too often you pay to pay when you go on holiday. Summer's coming. Now's the time to prep. So let's start with the basics of what happens when you spend on plastic. When you go abroad, whether you're spending on a debit card, a credit card or a prepay card, prepay has some slight exceptions on this. What happens is you spend abroad, your card gets a near perfect Visa, MasterCard or American Express exchange rate.

16:55Now, the perfect exchange rate at any moment is what's called the spot FX rate on the FX market, the foreign exchange markets. That's what FX stands for. The spot rate is the perfect rate. you're paying as near as damn it your card company gets that rate. I mean, a very smidgen above it, but not a smidgen that's noticeable in the amount that it costs us. But what most plastic then does is adds what is called a non-sterling, makes sense, exchange rate fee, which is normally about 2.75 or 3%. So in practice, that means if you buy something on the card that costs£100 worth of euros or£100 worth of dong, doesn't make any difference at that moment spot rate you pay 103 pounds for it make sense yeah so we're making it exchange rate neutral by the way i've just phrased it 100 pounds worth of euros at that rate cost you 103 pounds now what we're looking for is there are a lot quite a lot of these days a range of specialist cards that do not add a non-sterling exchange rate so then 100 pounds of euros cost you a hundred pounds, i.e.

18:04you get the perfect or the same near perfect exchange rate that Visa, MasterCard and American Express offer. And there are a lot of them out there. So how do we differentiate between the best ones? Well, first of all, we have to look at other fees. And second, we have to look at can you get cash back? And there is a card at the moment that has no other fees and gives you cash back. And it's called the Barclay Card Rewards Visa Card. Now, it is a credit card. So you're going to pay on it and then pay afterwards. But you need to make sure, block your ears, everyone, that you pay off the card in full every month.

18:42So there's no interest. You're just going to do your spending on the card. It works that way. It's interest free on spending on the card as long as you pay off in full in the month. You can make up to£500 a day of withdrawals from a cash machine with no fee. And bizarrely, some credit cards, if you withdraw cash on them, will still charge you interest even if you pay off in full. This one doesn't. So as long as you pay off in full, you won't pay cash withdrawal interest. Now, I would put as the top credit card, Barclay Card Rewards is my overall top pick. There's an argument that MBNA cashback visa, which gives quarter of a percent cashback and is guaranteed cash back for three years, has longevity on its cash back deal.

19:26Also, the Virgin Everyday Cash Back Mastercard pays 1 % cash back this summer, so more than Barclay card, but only for three months. And again, you pay cash withdrawal fees. So if you weren't going to use a cash machine, Virgin would beat it this summer. But either way, all of those are easy to get, as long as you pass the credit score, cash back credit cards that also give you near perfect exchange rate. And that That smacks the pants of any bureau's charge rate you will get. And what about drawing cash? So that's why the Barclay card, you can draw cash up to£500 a day, fee free with no interest.

19:59The other two cards, the MB &A and Virgin, will charge you quite a whack if you withdraw cash on it. So that's why Barclay card is my overall top pick. But if you weren't withdrawing cash, the other two come into it. It's worth saying overseas cash machines may still charge you a fee. So let's say you've got the Barclay card, you're on an overseas cash machine, The cash machine might charge you€2 or€3, whatever card you use, but Barclay card won't add to that. So if you choose a card on that basis to go away with, how do you know it's always going to be good for it? So, for example, I think on your advice, I went out and got that one.

20:36Halifax Clarity. Yes. Sorry. Is that still good? Halifax Clarity is a top pick specialist card. In fact, I should probably say, Halifax Clarity is currently a specialist card. you get perfect exchange rates, near perfect exchange rate on your spending. You just don't get the cash back. Right. And what about cash? Can I withdraw cash on that? I think that one charges you interest on cash withdrawals, not a fee. So some charge you a fee and interest. So on that card, you're better to spend, but it's not prohibitive if you withdraw cash as long as you pay off in full. But I mean, just to put that in perspective, I'm going to mention quite a lot of cards.

21:10You know, there's Club Lloyds, there's Halifax Clarity, there's Monzo, there's Sum Nation My Debit cards, there's some NatWest Credit cards, the Starling. There's lots of cards out there that are specialists and are good. If you have a specialist card, I'm not urging you to switch. But if you're asking me, what is the top credit card at the moment? Barclay card giving half a percent cash back on top of near-perfect exchange rates beats your card because of the cash back. So you may as well choose that. But is it worth you switching for half a percent cash back? It's only a small game, would be my answer.

21:40Off to Dominican Republic later this year on Official Mastermind. What's the currency? Sorry, it doesn't matter. You don't have to tell me. I'm only joking. Is it debit or credit card that's best? And is it prudent to use a different card for holiday to what you normally use in case there are any fraud issues? Though it's an all-inclusive holiday, how do you deal with tips if going cashless, as it seems you tip for the majority of things? OK, so let's start with debit or credit card. I deliberately only mentioned credit card before because I knew the first two questions that were coming and I wanted to cut a debit card separately.

22:13The big advantage of a credit card abroad is what's called Section 75 protection. That's where, by law, credit cards are jointly liable with the retailer if you buy something costing between£100 and£30 ,000. That's very valuable abroad because even if you had a fault with something you'd bought abroad, well, you're not going to take it back. So you have the ability to go to your credit card firm here. But there are some good debit cards as well. And of course, one of the advantages with one of them, which is the Chase debit card, which is an app-only bank that you do not have to switch to get and only does a soft credit score, so virtually everybody can get it as long as you're passing the ID check, unlike the credit cards where you need to pass a credit check to get it, so it's much easier to get.

22:56You have the Chase debit card, which doesn't have Section 75 protection because it's a debit card, but that gives you near-perfect exchange rates abroad and virtually everyone can get it. You can also get that really quickly. For example, if you are listening to Five Live and you are on holiday abroad now and you do not have a specialist card, You can actually sign up to Chase and within about 10 minutes, assuming you're accepted, you have a Chase account. You can then put a virtual Chase card into your Android, Google Pay or your iPhone Pay app within 10 minutes and you could use it abroad within 10 minutes and get near perfect exchange rates.

23:31So that's all about functionality rather than rate. It doesn't have the cashback. We used to have cashback abroad. It doesn't have it anymore abroad. You also have, worth me noting, if you were willing to switch bank, then you've got First Direct's free£175 deal at the moment. It pays you to switch bank. It has top rated for service and it has a near perfect exchange rate debit card. So if you wanted to switch bank, you could get paid£175. Say you're going on holiday in a month, that's£175 towards your holiday spending and you get a near perfect card. They don't have... If you ask me purely to go on what is the very best card in isolation, I would go for Barker Card Reward at the moment.