Holiday hacks: cheapest way to spend abroad, car hire, insurance, 18 days off for 9 days leave, passports, GHIC…

22:46So the Kite is the kids version. And you've got the Nationwide Flex One. Those are the free ones. If your children have the very popular but paid for GoHemry card, that is also near perfect exchange rates abroad. So they could use that if they were abroad. And there's the free Revolut card,£5 delivery again, but only on weekdays does that have near perfect exchange rate. it's 1 % on weekends. So you want to use it that way. So all of those, with all of those, you could load your kids up for money and then when they go abroad, with the exception of the Hyperjar where you can't withdraw from cash machines, they could spend or they could withdraw from cash machines, they'll get near-perfect exchange rates.

23:22But remember, when you withdraw from a cash machine abroad, there can be two charges. Your cards charge, most of these cards don't charge, and the overseas cash machine can also charge. I think I've got one of the good ones, a credit card to use abroad. But is it always going to be a good one or can they change the terms and conditions? Do you see what I mean? They can always change the terms and conditions. They should notify you. There are actually, it's become quite a popular thing. There are about 13 or 14 cards that give you the non-Sterling exchange rate fee now. So there's quite a lot of specialist cards, which is why I now pick on Chase because it gives you the 1 % cash back.

23:54If you want a credit card, there's a Barclay card, travel card that gives you a quarter of a percent cash back. Why would you want a credit card over the debit card? Because you get the Section 75 protection we talked about earlier. But with the Chase, you don't have an overdraft on it, so you'd preload. It effectively works like a prepayment card. And while it's a bank account, the Chase card, you can open it without switching bank account. You just use it as an app and it doesn't do a credit score. So pretty much anyone can get it. With the Barclay card, you'd be credit scored. And if you're doing the Barclay card, of course, you need to make sure, I'm going to do it yet again, you need to make sure you pay it off in full at the end of every month.

24:27Paul's going to the US for the first time in over 15 years. Is there a particular credit debit card to get for US dollars? I mean, US is absolutely card-tastic, right? You can generally use cards everywhere. The only issue you'd have is tipping, because you often need to tip over there. Honestly, the double tipping in the States now, they will have a service charge, and then they expect to tip on top. I mean, it can add 40 % to what you see in the bill. So if you're going in a restaurant in the States, especially if you're on the East Coast or the West Coast, expect to pay 40 % more than the list price and factor that in when you're budgeting.

25:00But that's not the question. Yeah. Look, as I say, when you use one of these cards in whatever country you're in, you get the same near perfect exchange rate on the day that the bank does. Now, that means these cards work in dollars. They work in euros. They work wherever you're going. So you can get one card. It works everywhere. What you may want to do if you want cash, the easy way to get cash with these is while you will pay an overseas ATM fee, what I tend to do if I want a little bit of cash in my pocket, which you sometimes feel safer when you're abroad with a bit of cash as well as your card, just in case, is as soon as I get to the airport, I go, I find the cheapest APM with the lowest cash withdrawal fee.

25:41I use my card. I make sure I pay in that currency. I, you know, I don't, you know, those cards, they're really quite vicious. They say, would you like to do a currency conversion? We'll convert it for you. And you press no. Are you sure you don't want to do a currency conversion. No. Are you absolutely certain currency conversion? Are you mad? A face comes up on the little screen. Right, a face comes up red and boiling and you don't want to do the conversion. You want your car to do the conversion. They want you to do it because they're making money from it. So you don't do the conversion. You take your cash out in dollars and that.

26:11But you're paying interest on that because it's on a credit card. Well, it depends. Chase Card's a debit card. Right, okay, yes. Okay, but it's a credit card. Okay, so this gets really complicated because if you're on a credit card, some credit cards, like the Barclays travel card, if you pay it off in full at the end of the month, doesn't charge interest on cash withdrawals. But some cards, like Halifax Clarity, do charge interest on cash withdrawals even if you pay off in full. So it depends on the credit card. And my top picks don't charge the interest if you pay off in full. While we're on talking about holiday tips, you've had a couple of tips for us related to that.

26:51The couple of random ones that no one would ask about that I want to throw in. So the first one is we're in a peculiar year this year. This happens about every four or five years where Easter is very late in April and therefore very close to the first May bank holiday, which means this year you can actually get 18 successive days off work for just nine days annual leave if you're on a typical work pattern. because it's the gap. Basically, you would book off the gap between Easter Monday on the 21st of April. So you'd have the Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday off. You'd book off the rest of the week and you'd book that up until Monday the 5th of May bank holiday.

27:28And that would mean nine days of annual leave, but 18 off. Now, you could also do that invariant so that you're getting 10 days off for five days and that type of stuff. So it's just a quick tip for anyone because there's going to be a fight to book annual leave over that period if you're in a place where lots of people are booking at the same time. So let's hope that people are listening to this show and this podcast. You're the ones who get your leave first. And if you're crushing HR systems around the country, then don't mention Martin's name. No, don't. It's impossible. We don't want to get into trouble.

27:57Second quick tip, and I get loads of successes on this in the summer, so I need to pre-warn people so they're able to do this, is the re-book and cancel. Note it's not cancel and re-book. It's re-book and cancel trick. It is your friend. So when you're booking hotels and car hire especially, aim for products that have free or very cheap cancellation so because what will happen is in the run-up to the summer holidays we'll be on here again and i'll be talking and i will say to you what you should do now if you've got a holiday or car have booked which you should always try and book early because you're locking in is go back online go back onto the comparison sites and check now if it's available cheaper which it can be the price can have dropped and if it has dropped and you've got free cancellation.

28:38What you then do is you book it again and you cancel your first booking so you get it at the cheaper price. So Steve got in touch with me. Booked a Melbourne hotel well in advance a few years ago. It was quite expensive because the Formula One Australian Grand Prix was scheduled for that week. When it was moved to the week before, prices dropped and we rebooked, saving over£300. And I get lots of successes, especially on Caja. Last couple of years, we've seen a change to the pattern of Caja. Used to always be booking early was cheap, but I think something due to the capacity post-Covid has meant that in certain areas it suddenly gets much cheaper in the three or four weeks before you go away.

29:15Now you can't guarantee that will happen so book your cheap car, get your free cancellation or even better if you don't have to pay and you're able to cancel it that way and then three or four weeks check again and if it has dropped I've had people who've saved 75 % by doing it that way. So I call it the re-book and cancel not cancel and re-book because if you cancel and then you can't book because something's happened you'll be in trouble. You've got nothing at all. Now, on to the tellers. And we talked earlier about my concern that too many children are calling their prepaid cards credit cards.

29:46And that sparked this week's tellers, which is, what have your children misunderstood or misassumed about money that you had to explain to them? And how old were they when they did it? And do they now understand it? You've sort of seen into the future here because a lot of it is to do with what we were talking about. With the credit cards. I've got loads here. I've got Emma. I do Facebook. My seven-year-old thinks that cards have infinite money on them. I try to explain that work gives us money for working, and once that money has run out, then that's it. I think we're slowly getting there reminding him.

30:21Kids do really... It's interesting. I did a quiz for my daughter's birthday where she had lots of friends around because I'm a fun dad. They loved it. It depends what the questions are. I nicked one of the House of Gains quizzes where they do averages. I don't know if you've... Have you done House of Gains? Yes. So you do averages and you ask two people to average. And I included in that things like average property price and average salary. And it was fascinating that some were pretty good and some just completely different scales of magnitude. What have you got? Roberto says, misapprehension of kids, that money grows on trees.

30:56He thought when he was five. Now he's six. He believes it just magically appears. Well, yeah, we've got one of those. Charlotte, one of mine, thought that the free cash signs on cash machines literally meant the cash was free and we could take as much as we like. Catherine, I think probably slightly older here, my daughter didn't realise that a regular payment from a debit card is not the same as and cannot be managed the same way as a direct debit. She missed cancelling two subscriptions due to this as she couldn't find a direct debit on her account to cancel. I think there are many grown-ups who don't know the difference between the three...

31:28But you're set up to fail. They set you up to fail with this. there's a kind of a carefully curated ambiguity, isn't there? Because, as we've said, they make money from you messing up. Yeah, absolutely. Again, I defined the three types of part cards before. Let's do the three types of regular payments, shall we? You have a standing order which you must set up from your bank account to pay another party. This will often be somebody you know, a regular fixed amount. You have a direct debit that you set up from a bank account and you would give your bank account details, not your debit card details.

32:03That's the crucial difference. And that is a payment that can be taken from your bank account, which can be a varying payment depending on the amount that you owe. But you have very strict rights called the direct debit guarantee that mean you can cancel it and it must be fair. And you have, you know, you have power if it goes wrong. Then you have what's known as a continuous payment authority or a recurring payment. This happens when you give the long number on your debit or credit card. So not your bank account details. If you do that, what you're effectively doing is you're authorising a company to take a payment.

32:37It's a bit like if you made a payment every month, like you used your card to pay every month, but they do that automatically. When you do that, now while the law does state that you have a right to cancel with your bank, some bank staff don't know that and push people away. You have a right to cancel with your bank. It's easier to cancel with the company, but they can leave subscriptions dripping away. and they're not listed in your regular payments on firms. Your standing orders and direct debits aren't listed. So the best way to spot it is to look at your bank or your credit card statements and look for the regular payments that you haven't made and then you need to cancel them.

33:08I actually had one, it was a mobile company and I called them up and I wanted to cancel it and they just said, you can't, you have to go to... And I was like, this is ridiculous. I want to cancel a payment with you. And they refused. It was interesting because I'd done it for work. I'd set it up to check out their service and I just thought, all right, well, you're never going on my life. I felt like saying, you're so play with the wrong person here, because clearly you're never going on my list of a firm that anybody should use at that point, because this is absolutely horrendous. Go on, what have you got next?

33:35Both my kids, nine and 13, call them Monzo bank cards, credit cards. We've been into that. I think we've explained why. Yeah, but I think it's the American influence. Yeah. Heather once asked my then five-year-old if I could swap my£10 note for her two, five pounds to pay the window cleaner. She said no. And when asked why, she said, because you'll have two and I'll only have one. There's a bit of challenge. I mean, there's some, I don't mean silly, but there's the kind of things that can take root at a young age. So Tom says, for example, when I was a kid, I assumed cheques could be written for anything and were essentially free money.

34:11Remember my dad looking at a Porsche catalogue and saying, why don't you just write a cheque? And similarly, when they were little, somebody said, when my brother was younger, he assumed an ATM was just somewhere you could go and get free money. Now, in a four-, five-year-old mind, whatever, that is entirely logical. And you've almost got to explain right from the get-go. Look, I think this is the deconstruction that needs to happen, and it goes on at a much older age. So when I designed classes for kids years ago, one of the things I always did when I was talking to 15-year-olds is I said, who do you think gets the cheaper car insurance price?

34:47The new customer who's signing up or the existing customer who's been there and has been a loyal customer for many years. And quite rightly, logically, they all put their hands up that it was the existing customer, but they were wrong. And so I think many of these things are intuitive that kids think, but they're wrong. I've got this one from Sarah. I'll never forget the day we moved my daughter into her uni house. Her new housemate was lovely and we got on really well, chatting, helping us set things up. We got talking about money and finance and we discussed whether she had a student account.

35:17She said that it did and it came with an overdraft facility to use. I explained to her that it was only borrowing money and she should have to pay it back. She was shocked. She had no idea and thought it was free money. I think she learnt a lot that day. That's why I've campaigned for financial education in school. There are young people, 18-year-olds, who are financially independent and able to get debt, who believe that the bigger APR is the better APR. The bigger number is the better number. The higher interest, because they don't know it is interest, is the better one. I mean, this is why, as parents, people think, oh, it's sweet, my child says that.

35:56No, you need to have your antenna on, you need to intuitively, we need to gently correct them about these, as soon as we can, about these misconceptions, because every little bit helps to use the advertising signal. We've got a, just going back to holidays, 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.

36:32But if you want to go to a Bureau de Changes, 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 onto 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.

37:19Because 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. And that isn't it for travel. There's lots more to come, including cheap travel insurance, how to avoid excess car hire costs when you go to the desk and they're trying to charge you a lot more, and lots more on spending abroad.

37:57Why don't we do a bit of this? Cue the music.

38:08Martin Yes, this is Money Mastermind where I ask Adrian a question and traditionally I was saying he gets them wrong but this year he's three for three I mean you have a 100 % record in 2025 which is pretty outstanding actually Adrian overall you have got seven right and eight wrong Why don't we retire this feature? It's not going to get any better points It is fascinating scoring. I mean, if you're at parity in a three-option multiple choice, it's actually showing there is some knowledge going on in there. It's wonderful. I'm very proud of you. You're listening. Thank you. So let's get on to the question.

38:43Listeners, Adrian recently opened his electricity and water bills at the same time. He was shocked. There we go. I just have to give you the time. Please do that noise, because sometimes I don't realise there's been a joke. I'm very well aware. It's a poor one, this. I was busy. And not surprising, he was shocked because bills in England and Wales are going up 36 % over the next five years on average, though it does depend on which your water company is. A 20 % rise this year alone, so the big rise comes straight away. Now, in England and Wales, you get a water bill based on the rateable value of your home, which is a proxy for how much it could be rented out for which is effectively a proxy for your house's value.

39:31The rateable system is based on the local taxation system of the late 1980s. The predecessors of the poll tax which was the predecessors of the council tax. But that is still... Bizarre. That is still what the water bills are based on. So my question for you, Adrian. Is it mad? Answer, yes. Yes, thank you very much. Play the alley-oop. Yeah, go on. If you believe the rateable value of your house is wrong, and you would probably only do it if you felt you were paying too much, how do you challenge it? A, through the valuation office agency. B, through the valuation office agency, but only within the first six months of moving in.

40:20or C, it can't be challenged. So A, through the Valuation Office Agency, B, through the Valuation Office Agency, but only within the first six months of moving in or C, it can't be challenged. Well, it can't be B because that means a nonsense because I've been where I live for more than 10 years. So the logic of that would be, so the logic of that would be, well, you should have challenged when you moved in or you've already lost your right to challenge. Yeah. I'm not saying that is the answer. So I'm saying that's what the logic of that would be. I would say... So you've got A, the Valuation Office Agency, B, the Valuation Office Agency, because it's only within the first six months of moving in, or C, it can't be challenged.

40:58Since? And just to everybody at home, say out loud your answer now, because then you're committed, and you can't say it when you're afterwards. I want you to say out loud your answer now. See how you deal with it. Well, my logic here is simply that since the whole thing is barking mad, I would go for the most barking mad one, which is that what we just talked about B, that valuation office, whatever that is. Only within the first six months. Only within the first six months. So I've lost my right to challenge. Okay, final answer. Final answer. Okay. Now, in 1990, the general rate system was replaced by the community charge poll tax and the district valuer's office, which is the ones that looked after the rate system, was at that point disbanded.

41:43When the new council tax came in, the valuation office agency was set up and their job is to look at council tax. If you move into a new property, within the first six months, it is easy to challenge your council tax band. After six months, it is still doable, but much more difficult. So there is a six month after moving in, you need to check it rule. But that's for council tax. When it comes to water... I think the answer is C. Can I change it? You can't change, you've locked in. All right, okay. Because I've already started giving you the explanation. I know, I know. When I start giving it away.

42:15I'm a desperate man. And I'm afraid that I would, I think I'm almost going to give it you wrong twice because you said the most ludicrous option would be you can only challenge within the first six months of moving in. No, the most ludicrous option is the correct option, which is it can't be challenged. Play the uh-uh. It can't be challenged. So if you think the entire property structure has changed and your house is now worth thruppence ha 'penny when it used to be worth£300 million, you still have absolutely no right to challenge in the way that you can with council tax. No right to challenge.

42:48And it's worth people being aware of that. But let's move on a little bit to water, because water's really important. We've got a little bit of time left. I'm really interested to hear your tips on this. OK, so look, the first thing I would say, England and Wales only, this works differently in Scotland and differently in Northern Ireland. The first question you ask yourself is, do you have more or the same number of bedrooms in your property than people? So three bedrooms, two people, would count a yes on that. In that case, you are likely to be better off on a water meter than having a bill, because we talked about the bill is based on effectively the value of your property.

43:23So very simply, you've got a big house, not many people living in it. It's likely to be cheaper if they're measuring your actual water usage. It's going to make it a lot cheaper doing it that way. So I think that's one of the first things you need to look at. If that sounds right, get onto the Consumer Council for Waters calculator. Just as an example, Ursula, go in touch with me. I got a water meter fitted as there's only two of us in a three bed house. we now pay£16 a month instead of£60 a month. That's£500 a year cheaper. This is nothing to be sniffed at. Now, some people say to me, I wanted a water meter, they said I can't have one.

43:53In some ways, that is actually the sweet spot. Because if you can't have a water meter, because you might be in shed pipes in flats, so they can't do well, you can ask for an assessed charge. Now, what an assessed charge does is it works out how much you would pay if you were on a water meter, roughly. You then get given that. Now, if that's less than your water bill, You can go on the assessed charge, but it doesn't matter what you use, you're going to pay the assessed charge. If it's more, you stick on your water bill. Luke, I moved from my first home in October 2024. For context, I'm new to utility bills, etc.

44:24My water company wanted to charge me£50 for water a month when it's just me in a two-bed flat. When I called them up to negotiate, they told me that's the price and to deal with it. So I looked online and saw the value of getting a water meter installed. I booked an appointment, which they hid from me in the first place. and because they could not fit the water meter, I'm now on an assessed charge of around£100 a year, saving me£500 a year quickly. But he's not even actually got the water meter. So it's really important that, again, more or the same number of bedrooms than people, you're likely to be better off on a water meter.

45:04And then there's the website Save Money, Save Water, which you can go to has lots of free water saving gadgets. Now a couple more important updates about water bills. First of all, are you one of up to 2 million homes on low incomes or on universal credit missing out on saving hundreds of pounds with a social tariff? Now these social tariffs are offered by all firms and they can reduce what you pay by up to 90 % by lowering or sometimes capping the cost of your bills or your water meter charges. Yeah, there are almost 2 million households missing out. It's incredibly important. If you are on a low income, and exactly what the criteria are depends, but let's say less than£22 ,000,£23 ,000 family income, or you're on universal credit, just get onto your water company's website, see what it's offering, or call them up and talk to them about it.

45:49There's a separate scheme that you could have as well, which is called Watershore, which is typically worth about£160 a year. Now, to be eligible for the Watershore scheme, you need to have a water meter, receive benefits, and either have three or more children or a medical condition, such as Crohn's or eczema, which means you need to use more water. If that's you, you might be able to have your bills capped under the Watershore scheme, and that can work in conjunction with the social tariff. Now, just a note on water meters, I know one of the questions that many people have to me is, if you get a water meter and suddenly it's not working for you, can you change back?

46:27Yes, usually, is my answer. you normally have up to two years to change back with most water firms, although there are a couple that don't do it. So it is a question to check and ask beforehand. And the other thing just to say is if you moved into a property with a water meter or you have had a water meter compulsorily, compulsorily, compulsory fitted, sorry, compulsory fitted. I can't even think of the word, but you know what I mean, I'm going to carry on. Then you can't change it back. You don't have a choice, I'm afraid. So the changing back rule is only for those who have chosen to opt for a water meter voluntarily.

47:03And I managed to pronounce that word correctly.

47:08Now we're going to go back to travel and 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, but 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. The 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.

47:47If 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. They 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.

48:13The 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. If 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?

48:41Elaine 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. The 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.

49:18So 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. And Lynne's asked a question, and we've got a lot of questions about this.

49:49She 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, and 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, you know, not really collected the feedback.

50:27A place like Coverwise Bronze, Leverguard Flexi Bronze, Avanti, Admiral, Stay Shore are all worth looking at for 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. Kocotas 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. I 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.

51:11And 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. It 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.

51:38If 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. It 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.

52:22Now, 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. even 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 favor 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.

53:02But 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. That brings to the end the special quickfire travel insurance round. Thank you. How did I pass? Yeah, flying colours. One full marks? Literally flying colours. Oh, well done. That was an impromptu pun, Simon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I didn't know I was going to make it. You wasted it as a producer.

53:30We had one question from Desmay. What's the best credit card to take abroad for minimum fees? Well, again, I talked about the Chase card, and that is a debit card. So if you're going abroad and you want a credit card because you get that Section 75 protection, it's the Barclay Card reward credit card that gives you near-perfect exchange rates when you go abroad, doesn't have ATM fees, and gives you 0.25 % cash back on your spending. So Chase is 1%. It's a debit card. This is 0.25%. Make sure you pay it off in full every month. Although I'm just wondering, a bit like we talked about in the tellers, whether you're using credit card as a shorthand for plastic, in which case I would probably go with Chase as the debit card.

54:14Peter asks, I've got a post office travel card that I preload prior to travel. Is it best making payments in the local currency or in British pounds? Absolutely always. You want your card to do the conversion. Pay in the local currency. Post Office Travel Card isn't one of the best cards out there. You can get better rates either on prepay with the likes of Revolut or by all the other cards I've been talking about while we're at it. It's fine, but it's no great shakes. But you still want it to do the conversion. I mean, I've seen horrible conversion rates abroad. I mean, where you're losing 10%, 15 % if you pay in pounds and let them do the conversion.

54:49Let the shop or the ATM do the conversion as opposed to your card company doing the conversion. So pay. It's a simple one. Most people go to Europe. Pay in euros. If you're going to America, pay in dollars. If you're going to Vietnam, as I like to say, that currency, pay in dong. Like literally last Friday, I was in Tenerife Airport and I bought a Burger King and it asked me what I wanted to pay and I was like, I wish Martin Lewis was here. And I knew there was a right answer. What did you choose? Well, so I went for euros. Good. I knew there was a right answer. So yes, I got lucky there. We got a lot of questions about mobile phones, including this one from Sue.

55:26Hi, Martin. Sue here. I'm due to go to the US later this year. I've just discovered that my new phone will accept an eSIM. Are they a good idea? What should I look for? Is there anything I need to be aware of or to avoid, please? Thanks a lot. Yep. Sue, I'm a fan of eSIMs. Now, I wouldn't tend to use them if you're just going away for a week in Europe. Almost all UK phones either have free EU roaming or you just pay a couple of quid a day to be able to use your phone in Europe at the same rate. You know, being able to get your free calls and your free texts or whatever you'd be doing in the UK.

56:03With data, they tend to match up, although some of them have higher data limits than your UK contract if you're going abroad. So do check that out. But generally, going in Europe, if you're not going to be using it any more than you would at home, it won't cost you that much. You pay a couple of quid a day. If you were staying for a longer period, I might think of an eSIM. Now, an eSIM is a virtual SIM card that you can sign up to online. You put the details in. You have to be able to change the settings on your phone to be able to do it. And then effectively, all your data goes through the SIM card.

56:33So then you would make your calls on WhatsApp rather than making calls on your eSIM. Some of them would allow you to do calls, but it's often about a data package that you're getting when you're going abroad. And that's what's really expensive. So I generally am a fan of eSIMs. I've used them myself to great success personally, where I've been able to use a lot of data abroad for fractions of the cost, you know, saving hundreds of pounds if I'd used the same data abroad. I never would have done because I knew what the cost would be. But because I had one of these data packages, I could use my data while I was abroad.

57:00What I would say is if you're a first timer, you know, different SIMs, different coverage. If you're going to the States, different States, depending which phone has the best coverage where you go. So what I would probably do is I'd get myself a cheap eSIM that, say, lasted a week and only had a small amount of gig, because you can always just buy another one online very easily for a firm that you think is good. Then try and use it. And if it's working well, then just upgrade your data package. And if it's not working well, you might want to try a different one. That would be my general advice.

57:31There are good guides to eSIMs in each country available online as well, which are worth looking at. 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 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. I'm fine. Let me move into the microphone to do this.

58:04if 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 can be about two quid a day.

58:39There'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£1 ,000 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.

59:16It 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 hire 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 is my credit card yes 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 have been times when I've been at a desk getting car hire and there's been someone of 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?

1:00:07It'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 and 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 and I mean you touched on credit cards there Helen is going to Bruges in Belgium for Easter needs to pay for the hotel on arrival. What's the best way to pay for the hotel? Is it debit card, credit card, or should she put the money on a prepaid money card? I would just get yourself a specialist card, whichever one suits you, a debit card or a credit card or a prepaid card, although the debit and the credit card have the better rates, and I would simply pay on that.

1:00:45I mean, you could argue do it on a credit card for the Section 75 protection, but I think once you're there, if the hotel is there, the marginal gain of the purchase protection that you'd get on that, there is a slight gain. So a credit or a debit card, I would suggest, would be the easiest way to go. I'll do one final thought that no one's asked, but it is an important one when we're talking about currency and money. When I talk about near-perfect exchange rates, as I've explained, that is on the rate on the day that you pay. Now, clearly, exchange rates move every day and they fluctuate every day.

1:01:20So what I'm not saying is that use one of the specialist cards and you will get the best possible exchange rate over a time period. You will get the best possible exchange rate on that day. And if the rate were to change the next day, you may gain or you may lose out compared to having waited. Some people worry about that. And so there is another strategy that you could adopt. And the other strategy would say that if you think the rate now is reasonable and it's one that means that your holiday would be affordable, but you don't know what the rate will be when you go away, you could simply go and either get cash now to spend when you're abroad at today's rate, or you could go and get yourself a prepaid card because some of the prepaid cards give you the facility to load up and get the rate on the day that you load up as opposed to the rate on the day that you spend.

1:02:10Now, if you were to adopt that strategy, that would mean you're hedging your bets that you think the rate is better now than it will be when you go away. So what I would probably do if you were really risk averse is I would probably get half of my money now, if you think the rate's reasonable, I'd get half of it on a prepay card, or if you need to, if you're a cash type person on cash. And then I would do the other half for when you go away at the near perfect rates then, then you're hedging your bets against currency moves one way or the other. I mean, it's not something I do myself. I just have a specialist card for spending abroad.

1:02:43But I know that some people are very nervous and very sensitive to price moves, in which case it is a way of hedging your bets in case there were to be a substantial move in the value of currency in between you booking and you going that would mean it would make it more difficult to afford to have a nice holiday when you went away. And I think I'll leave that as my final travel thought.

1:03:06And now podcast listeners, it's that time for the quick tips. I've just got one for you, but it's an important one. It's a way to slash£100 off energy standing charges, which is probably the single most complained about issue I get when we're talking about energy or probably anything else. There's a new tariff just launched. It's from EDF. It's called it Simply Tracker Extra Tariff. Now, what it does is it tracks the price cap that over 80 % of homes are on. So if the price cap goes up, it goes up. But the standing charges are£100 a year lower. So that's the daily charges you pay for gas and electricity are£100 a year lower over the year.

1:03:44So who's this good for? Well, it's especially good for those who have lower usage. It's incredibly difficult to work out. So I'm going for a very rough rule of thumb, is if you pay on average under£135 a month, then you will probably be better off on this than going for a cheap fix. You will certainly be better off than this, than just sticking on the price cap. Most people can get this tariff on most payment methods, although on prepay, you have to have a smart meter. So if you're on smart prepay, you can do it. It lasts for a year, there are£25 per fuel exit fees. I should note, if you're a mid to high energy user, because the price cap is still predicted to go up somewhere between 3 % to 6 % in April, I think you would be better off locking yourself into a cheap fix, because for you, the unit rate, the amount that you pay for using gas and electricity is very important.

1:04:31For lower users, the standing charge makes up such a big proportion of their bill, cutting the£100 off that will often be a bigger saving. But for mid to high users, I would be going for a cheap fix. Get yourself onto a whole-of-market comparison to decide which one is cheapest for you.

1:04:48That's it for this week. If you've enjoyed it, please tell your friends you've been listening to the Martin Lewis podcast. If not, why not tell them you were listening to the Off Air podcast with Jane and Fee. Apparently their latest episode is about tax-dodging alpacas. Do you know why alpacas don't like singing with backing music? It's because they prefer to sing alpacapella. Sorry. We tend to put out a new episode every Thursday. Do subscribe to keep up to date and then your pockets will be pleased with you. Take care.

1:05:31Martin Lewis is the founder of MoneySavingExpert.com. But of course, other consumer and price comparison websites are available. You can get in touch with Martin's podcast production team by emailing martinlewispodcast at bbc.co.uk. The offers and rates mentioned in the podcast are correct at the time of recording. However, if you are listening on demand, it's worth double-checking as details can date. Remember to subscribe on BBC Sounds and leave us a review however you listen. I gotta pay