The Packing Pod! Cut out hidden holiday costs: foreign exchange, insurance, travelling with kids & more

24:54You'll know my rule, Adrian, if you're using a credit card for reward or perks, you should always pay it off. In full. In full, exactly. Now, when you do that, there are some credit cards that for cash withdrawals will still charge you interest, even if you pay off in full. So those are the things that you need to watch for. which means generally in most cases the best thing to do is to get yourself a specialist overseas card and to use the specialist overseas card for spending on it rather than to withdraw cash and to spend the cash you've withdrawn abroad so as when i say withdraw cash i mean withdraw cash

25:38Martin Lewis:overseas and to spend the cash abroad you are usually far better to spend on it now i mentioned prepaid cards, I'll just do that very quickly. Some prepaid cards work exactly the same way. Some prepaid cards allow you to do something slightly different, which is you get the rate, you get the near perfect rate on the day you load the card with money. So you're therefore locking in that day's rate. Now you can see hopefully the benefit and disbenefit of doing that. The benefit is if you've locked in when the rate's good, you've done well if the rate moves against you. The disbenefit, if you've locked in when the rate's bad, you've done badly and the rate moves against you.

26:15Martin Lewis:Personally, I tend to just say I'll never be able to second guess the market so I'll just get the rate on the day I spend and cross my fingers as if it's going to work. The strategy that some people adopt, not me, is to say I like the rate today. I'm going to close my eyes to the way that that rate moves because the rate today is one that I could afford to spend at. So I'm going to change all my currency using a top prepaid card on the rate that we have today and lock that rate in. And there's a half-half strategy that says well I'll do half my spending money, I'll do a prepaid card locked in on the rate and the rest I'll do a specialist card on the day and then I'll sort of hedge my bets between the two.

26:49So what do you think the best cards are? All right so let me go through I'm going to give you three cards I have to say there are about 20 or 30 specialist overseas spending cards these days and if you have one of those and you're happy with it this is not a call from me for you to change it this is just me saying if you're getting a new one now these are my top picks now because we have such a wealth of these cards available now what i've done to compare is i've looked at various different features that give you benefits let me go through them so probably the top standalone pick today is the lloyd's ultra visa credit card as it's a credit card you should only be doing this if you're paying it off in full

27:34Martin Lewis:each month in full preferably by direct debit because otherwise you're going to pay interest on the spending and that'll get rid of the gain. All the cards I'm going to mention, I'm not going to talk about it again, have the near perfect exchange rate or I wouldn't be mentioning them in this section. Why is it my top pick? Well, you get the near perfect exchange rate and if you're spending on this card, you also get for the first year 1 % cash back, both on UK and overseas spending. So it's a good cash back card for the UK. You could just use this card for all your normal UK spending as long as you're paying it off in full and you're going to get 1 % back.

28:07Martin Lewis:So a quid per £100 you spend, you spend£10 ,000 a year, that's£100 back. If you're abroad, then another way to think about it is not only are you getting the perfect exchange rate, but the 1 % cash back means you're actually getting 1 % better than the perfect exchange rate, you're getting better than the spot rate. The main negative from this card, apart from interest if you don't pay it off in full, is that cash machine withdrawals have interest on it. So if you're getting this card, you primarily want to use it for spending and minimise your cash machine withdrawals. Just to put this in perspective though the way the interest works out very very very roughly if you're paying off in full and you take money out of a cash machine it's about one percent so you're still doing better than you would from most bureau de change even with that cash machine fee on top but you'd be even better spending my next choice is the chase debit mastercard so this is a debit card the reason I'm picking this is because it's easy to get.

29:03So Chase is a bank account variant app, but crucially, when you get this card, you don't have to switch bank accounts. You're not switching bank to do it. And it doesn't do a hard credit check. It does a soft credit check, effectively an ID check. That's one that doesn't affect your credit score. And it means almost everybody will be accepted for this card. Chase has, it's a debit card, so there's no interest, obviously, you can't go overdrawn on it. It has the same near-perfect rates abroad. There's no cashback on it abroad. There is some cashback in the UK, but it's only on things like groceries or eating out or everyday transport and fuel.

29:38It's not a wide everything you're spending on it. So basically, if you just want to pop it in your pocket, the chase card's really useful. Just to say, Simon, can we have the music back? I need the music. Just to say, if you're currently on your Sunbread and you're abroad and you're sitting there and you're going, oh, I'm really enjoying this podcast, but I've come away and I haven't got a specialist overseas card. What am I going to do? I'm already on holiday. I've broken Martin's golden rule. Well, one advantage with Chase is you can sign up to the app and you can actually then, using the app, put this into your Google Wallet or your Apple Pay pretty much instantaneously so you could do this on holiday and then you could pay using Apple Pay or Google Wallet.

30:18While on holiday, I get the specialist card straight away. You don't need to wait to do it. So if you're already there and you're already away and you've got your sangria and your umbrella, you could add yourself a specialist overseas spending card too. Cut the music. Thank you very much. And my final card that I would pick, and again, there are lots of others. The First Direct Debit Mastercard. Now, to get this, you need to switch. But switchers to First Direct at the moment are being paid up to£200, depending which route and which site you go through to switch. so you can be paid£200 for switching bank account which would be good for your holiday spending money the debit card also has near-perfect exchange rates abroad and overall it's a top service bank account so Lloyd's Ultra is if you just want a standalone credit card and you have a pretty good credit score and you're going to pay it off in full Chase is the easy to get debit card if you just you know you don't want to switch bank account first direct you get 200 quid which is gonna probably for most people be more than you get cash back on Lloyd's you get 200 quid switching bonus and you get the debit card with it but for that you have to switch bank account and that's where i'll stop okay sue we're going to cyprus soon even i know the answer to this when paying with a card and the card reader asks do you want to pay in euros or sterling what is the best option martin adrian answer it always always the local currency euros euros euros if you're in the euro zone well done And finally, after all these years working together, you got one.

31:49Yes. Absolutely right. Spot on. So look, this is the thing to understand. When you're abroad, when it's offering you that dynamic currency conversion, it's saying, let us convert to you and then you'll pay in pounds. You have to think, it is then doing the conversion. The shop you're spending in, the overseas cash machine is who is doing the conversion. And the reason they want to do the conversion is because they add a whack of profit to the exchange rate. They give you a worth exchange rate. And this is the reason why when you say, no, I'll just pay in euros. It goes, are you sure? Do you really, really want to?

32:21We don't know what rate you'll get, but we can give you this guaranteed rate here. And you go, I'm fine. It's fine. I'll pay in euros. And they go, are you sure? Please, no. Because they want you to do it because they make money from it. So in this case, please listen to me, not them. the reason if you've got a specialist overseas card you want your specialist overseas card to do the currency conversion for you that's why you got it even if you've got a bog standard UK card in general and I promise and my wife always gives me a frown when I go abroad I actually go to a raft of different cash machines and every time I buy something I check the exchange rate and just so I can say this I have never seen an overseas shop or ATM that gives me a better rate

33:07Martin Lewis:than just a bog-standard non-specialist UK card does with its 2.75 % exchange fee. So even if you don't have a specialist card, you are better to say pay in the local currency. Now, I'm not guaranteeing everywhere in the world there isn't someone somewhere who's doing that, but I've never seen one when I've been abroad and I've never heard anybody tell me that they found somewhere that is better than that. So as a safety rule of thumb, pay in the local currency, as my mate Adrian told you. Clive says should I be withdrawing cash from an ATM abroad on a bank or a credit card I think you've covered that haven't you well it is a little bit more nuanced the problem with that question is the answer is it depends on which bank or credit card so if you have a specialist card that has absolutely no fees for withdrawing cash abroad that will smack the pants off a normal debit card even that Lloyd's card where I said there was you know effectively it's 13 % APR interest which works out about a pound per hundred on a month if you're paying off in full.

34:08So if you're paying off in full, that Lloyd's card has perfect exchange rates plus 1 % ATM fee. A normal debit card would have a 2.75 % exchange rate fee but may not have an ATM charge. It may well do, but it may not. So even so, your specialist credit cards beats the debit cards. But if it's a bog standard debit card and the bog standard credit card, I'd probably go for the debit card. Okay. Claire, is Monzo good for travelling abroad? As I heard, the percentage rate is low. Monzo is in the list of specialist overseas credit cards. It doesn't add a sterling exchange rate fee, so you get the near-perfect exchange rate.

34:50I think it's a MasterCard underlying rate that you get there. I mean, it doesn't have the cashback I've been talking about, but this basically falls into the category I mentioned earlier, which is, I'm not suggesting if you already have one of these that you need to change just because these are marginally better for things like cash back but these are the ones i'd be getting if i was signing up today the only issue with monzo from memory is it it only it limits the amount of fee-free cash you can take from atms quite restrictive on the amount of fee-free cash you can take from atms so it's good on spending but a bit restrictive on fee-free cash from atms i have the wonderful claire sitting in for rosie this week next to me who's going to go i think it's 200 pounds a month is it 200 pounds a months she was checking us out i got it right adrian 200 pounds a month limits which is quite low anton wants to know do you actually need to take cash these days it depends where you're going if you're going to uh a modern developed country i wouldn't bother taking cash i would just take my specialist card and i get cash out of an atm they have atm at airport if i needed cash but many places you go to you don't need cash it's a bit like being in the uk you don't need cash in

35:56Martin Lewis:many places in some countries like go to Iceland and places like that and cash is like what's that so uh you know they cash for if you have to pay for the toilet they've got a you just beep your card when you're doing things like that if you're going somewhere that isn't as developed there are other payment measures you know if you go to China then it's things like Alipay that you need and you need to work on different options so it is worth doing a little bit of research if you're going to Europe basically I don't think you need to use cash in most places in Europe these days but if you're going to somewhere a little bit more offbeat or somewhere that's in the developing world then cash may well be useful okay there's been a change to ryanair's policy for taking children on board there has indeed yes ryanair doing the right thing for once uh let's hope that doesn't need a right of reply but anyway uh yeah so right ryanair was under uh under investigation by the competition and markets authority over the fact that it basically was breaking the rules and effectively making people pay to sit next to their child, whereas the rules say that you should be able to sit next to your child for free.

36:57Nor are the rail lines of doing it. It has now changed its policy. So if you are travelling with a child aged 2 to 11, obviously they're under 2, they're sitting on your knee anyway. If you're travelling with a child aged 2 to 11, Ryanair will randomly allocate you free seats so that one parent is sitting next to the child aged 2 to 11. but it does note that others in the party may be separate my suspicion and this is purely based on speculation and not in any fact whatsoever is in pretty much all cases other members will be

37:32Martin Lewis:separate because what Ryanair wants you to do is pay to pre-book your exact seat in advance and pay to sit together and that's how it used to operate the policy now it is going to if you're with your kids it's going to do it for free on random allocation which is a slight improvement pretty much all other airlines do that automatically if you're traveling with children so if you're traveling with your children and they're under 11 i mean different airlines have different ages but gemini 11 is the the youngest old old age group then you should be sat so that they're sat next to at least one parent let's take a break from all the summer holiday tips and questions and whatnot into the tell us what have you got for the tell us well we're not breaking that very much, to be honest.

38:19Because the tellers is, we did it last

38:21Martin Lewis:week as well, do you work for an airline, hotel or overseas travel business? If so, what are the big mistakes people make when going flying or being abroad and what are your top tips? Now, last week, we just did flight crew because we had so many brilliant tips from flight crew. This time we're going to go to hotel staff and people who work in the overseas travel business. Why don't you start, mate? Okay, Vicky, I work in a UK hotel. Please check the hotel check-in times and don't assume you can check in early because you've got an event to attend either book the night before as well or make arrangements to get changed elsewhere at 10 a.m there are still people in your bed there speaks a woman who's had to deal with some disgruntled guests over the years you can feel it can't you no there's somebody already no you can't have your room it's 10 o 'clock you're checking it out you can just feel it kipper work for a hotel company even if they can't do it cheaper as online sites don't allow it always book directly as you are much more likely to be upgraded or at least less likely to get the last worst rooms i would moderate that somewhat i would always do my comparison and always try and find the cheapest room i would see if the hotel can match it or beat it but i wouldn't automatically book with the hotel if the hotel isn't offering you the same price as you can get elsewhere as cheaply but if you can booking direct can often and save you although if you're a cashback site user and you're getting the cheapest price via a site that offers cashback and that cashback can be on hotels it can be seven or eight percent then you might find that reduction overcomes it okay kath learn how to get to your hotel without google maps in case your phone fails keep the address of the hotel written somewhere so you know how to get back there basically it's quite it's absolutely right and it's interesting because when we go abroad if we're staying somewhere the first thing i do i always make I'm sure my daughter knows the name of the hotel.

40:08And I suppose we should do it.

40:10Martin Lewis:Actually, by telling her, you know it yourself. But I think it is a really good tip. Jill, we had this last week, the same tip. With airplane toilets. With airplane toilets. This is sort of, Jill, always wear footwear when using the bathroom. The floor is minging. And there's a very nice little green sick-faced emoticon just right bang by that. I would add to that. It was quite a well-known British UK, a British hotel chain. And I got a piece of glass in my foot, a microscopic piece of glass from the bathroom floor in this hotel. And it tormented me for months, cost me a fortune in Chiropody before I finally managed to get it out.

40:52Because, I mean, I don't even blame the hotel. If a guest has smashed a glass, you know, and you're always going to, a tiny little bit's going to be left. I mean, I didn't bloody complain to the hotel. I didn't expect any recompense. but it was a pain in the backside as well as the foot. I know, we sort of treat it like we're at home but we're never really at home when you're staying away. It's interesting, have you ever watched Four in a Bed, the Channel 4 programme? I haven't, the mind's slightly boggling. It's not, don't worry. It's basically, they have four couples who run bread and breakfast and they all stay in each other's and they rate each one.

41:26The amount they attack over the cleanliness and they go lifting up the mattress and spotting hairs between the mattress and the bed stand underneath and going through random curtains. And you just think, actually, if you've got a different guest in every day, to clean to such a high level of hygiene is really quite difficult. And you don't have that when you're living at home because, OK, someone slept in your bed last night, but it was you, so it's absolutely fine and it doesn't work that well. But yeah, tough. Barney, if you don't like your room, sort it with reception. Do not wait until you get home

41:57Martin Lewis:asking for your money back. It sounds stupid, but so many people do it. Yeah, good tip from Barney. we've got loads more of these Adrian why don't we go back to sort of my tips and we'll come back to the overseas travel biz section of the tellers later

42:15ok travel insurance you have a big warning about getting it ASAB I know but quite a few people struggle to know how to do that here's Gene's question I have yearly travel insurance which needs renewal in August if I book now for September and change provider in August will I still be covered for holiday with a new provider Hokey-dokey. So let's do the ASAB. Many people will know this. I've been talking about it again and again,

42:39Martin Lewis:and people quote it back to me, so I'm glad it's one of those. It's a bit like in full. It's starting to become part of the lexicon. ASAB stands for as soon as you book. You should get your travel insurance as soon as you book. If you have already booked and you're listening to this and you don't have travel insurance, then you should get your travel insurance now. Have you done it yet? Now. Yes. Have you done it now? Now. Now. It's done. It needs to be done, And the reason I make do this warning and I do this warning every year is half of what you pay for in travel insurance is to cover you in case something happens before you go that stops you going.

43:16That's the ASAB rule. And every summer someone gets in touch with me. I'm not going to give details. I'm going to paraphrase of the typical question I get. it's something like I've been diagnosed with a serious condition or my partner has like cancer we can't go on holiday we're due to go in six weeks time as I'll be having treatment at that point but the airline or the hotel won't refund what do we do now as I always say to them unfortunately unless you have flexible booking the airline or hotel is well within its rights and the analogy I use for this so some of you will have heard it before is if I bought a tennis racket and I broke my arm I can't complain that the tennis racket is faulty the tennis racket isn't faulty the problem is with me and unfortunately the same is true even if you have a serious illness with an airline or a hotel they may out of goodwill allow you a refund but they don't have to unless you had flexible refunds so what I then say to them is this is why you have your travel insurance and this is what your travel insurance is for and someone always goes oh I haven't sorted

44:21Martin Lewis:it yet and then i'm stuck and it's a very awkward and difficult situation because they're obviously in a desperate point in their life they're having this serious treatment and all i can want to say in my head is why didn't you get your travel insurance asab it costs seven quid it's just a bit so the asab rule is incredibly important now can you remind me of gene's question because i went off on one she has yearly travel insurance needs renewal in august if she says if i book now for September and then change provider in August, will I still be covered for the holiday with a new provider? Okay, so this is really important about what ASAB means, what having travel insurance in place means.

45:03With an annual policy which covers you for all your trips away in a year, you need to have an annual policy in place at the time that you book. Now, if that annual policy is still live when your holiday is due, that's very simple. If it isn't, as in Jean's case, then what you need to do is you need to have a continuing or contiguous policy. So you need to have a new annual travel policy that starts on the day your existing policy ends. If you have that, then you should be covered. The vast majority of annual travel insurance policies will cover you for a holiday once the policy has ended if something happens within the policy term that stops you going.

45:48So in Jean's case, if she's got her annual travel insurance policy in August and she books a holiday in September and something happened now to stop her going,

45:57Martin Lewis:she would be covered in most annual travel policies. I have to do the, you've got to check, but in most annual travel policies she would be covered. Now, the easiest way to stop jurisdictional problems is to get an annual travel policy with exactly the same firm in that circumstance. So then it's covering you the whole period through. But generally wouldn't work or be that difference anyway. But you have to have that policy go forward. Worth noting, most providers only let you get a policy up to 90 days ahead. So if you're booking a holiday in January and your policy ends in December, you're just going to have to put a note in your diary three months before the policy end date to get yourself a new annual travel policy then.

46:35Martin Lewis:because otherwise you're really going to struggle to do it. But you should still be covered now if you've got your January holiday booked and you've got current annual travel insurance. While I'm on it, let me just do single trip policies because people get confused about this as well. A single trip policy is one that covers you for a single stay away, just one holiday. So let's say your holiday dates will be 7th to the 14th of September. What you would do to be covered and to fulfil my ASAB rule is you would go and get your single trip policy now. Now, you would put in the dates that I won't cover for the 7th to 14th of September.

47:08But because you have, once you've paid for that policy, you've got the policy. Even though some think, well, hold on, but I've only paid for a policy for 7th and 14th. It's about having an active policy. You are now covered under single trip insurance for that specific policy. If anything happens to you from this point, obviously within the terms and conditions of the travel insurance cover, that stops you going on holiday. So that's what ASAB means. Final one. I wasn't going to mention it, but I've just suddenly thought about it. people often ask me about packaged bank accounts in this some really good packaged bank accounts available at the moment actually those are ones where you pay a monthly fee say 12 13 14 pounds a month and then you get your world travel insurance and your mobile phone cover and your breakdown cover all included in one well if you have one of those you effectively have an ongoing annual travel insurance policy that is automatically redone each year for you so you

48:00Martin Lewis:are covered. We've got not so much a question as a statement from Susan a solid tale, he said everyone should have to take out travel insurance currently in Spain, fit 32 years old, no pre-existing health conditions, I had a stroke 10 days ago after treatment and many tests they found a hole in my heart and did surgery last night the 5 minute ambulance from my hotel to the first hospital and the initial short consultation that determined and I had to go to a specialist hospital an hour away, was€1 ,700 itself. So imagine what the final bill will be like. Thank goodness I took out good insurance.

48:39And look, thank goodness you're OK there, Suze. Very glad to hear you're OK, Suze. And it's really interesting because I was doing... I did a thing called the National Money Assembly recently where I went to a six-form college and it was streamed to 300 schools and I took questions from six-formers as part of financial education with the charity Young Enterprise. one of the questions was from an 18 year old who's going on their first holiday abroad and says they can't afford travel insurance should i get it and i was just like well yes of course you should and i also said i'm not sure i believe you you'll have to forgive me because travel insurance for someone your age costs about seven quid you know seven eight nine quid at the cheapest price clearly your holidays cost you 200 250 quid if you can afford the holiday you have to be able to forward the insurance as well and that might explain all the things it covers so thank you susan for your salutary warning it's really important okay actually another one when my daughter went away traveling i thought she'd be covered on annual travel insurance but then it turned out oh no because her trip was longer than three months or whatever she wouldn't have been covered no she'd need backpacker insurance for that one yeah and you have to go through that and so always be careful if you're doing a trip longer than 30 days, in some cases 28, but longer than 30 days you need to check your annual insurance will cover it.

49:52Sometimes they will, you know, if you're going for 31 you can just pay a small extra premium for them to cover it, that isn't too bad.

49:57Martin Lewis:But 30 days tends to be the cut-off period once you're moving into something where you have to have special cover. Okay, Nina Monckton, how does the GHIC work and what does it cover? That's the Global Health Insurance Card that's replaced the European Health Insurance Card, though it still mostly covers EU countries and a couple of others. It is a wonderful addition and you should have that as well as travel insurance. What the GHIC does is it gives you treatment in a covered country, so I'm going to call it EU, there are a few others, in an EU state-run hospital or doctor's surgery at the same cost for a local.

50:36So if it is free for a local, it is free for you. and you can sign up you shouldn't you never pay for the g hick i have to be careful here aging because it's one of those redundant acronym syndrome ones you can't say g hit card because it stands for global health insurance card then you say global health insurance card card but it's quite tempting to say g hit card so you get yourself your g hick it's totally free you can do it via the nhs website there's no such thing as a fast track there are shysters out there trying to get you to pay for it you don't need it check if you've got an e hick or g hick go and check that they're still valid meant there are two million that people are carrying that are out of date and it's a lot easier if it is in date you take it with you and it can be really useful if you need to go and see a GP or if you need to go to hospital and it can mean that you don't have to pay the excess on your travel insurance policy yeah in fact I got an email from William on this which is worth reading out as an example in Spain I had an extreme reaction to food I was wrongly served my travel insurer was hopeless it responded to my calls so I saw a private GP for 80 quid.

51:38I was told before flying I had to get a stomach x-ray and other tests which would have cost nearly a thousand euros. Luckily I got a G-HIC after hearing your information. I took a cab to a public hospital, was x-rayed in three hours and ruled fit to fly home. Total cost 104 euros instead of a thousand euros plus. Make sure you and everybody in your family group has a valid E-HIC or G-HIC. OK. Anna's looking for holiday insurance and it sounds like she's been recently treated for cancer So pre-existing medical conditions is always tough when it comes to holiday insurance There are some good specialist medical sites which I'd always go to like Medical Travel Compared as well as the normal comparison sites which tend to be able to find you something It's also worth looking in certain cases at packaged bank accounts I mentioned them earlier.

52:30Nationwide it tends to be pretty good for this So I think it's£18 a month with the nationwide that you pay. You get all the families' mobile phones covered and UK and European breakdown cover, and you get worldwide family travel insurance with no maximum age limit, which is very important. You do, and you can do this before getting the policy, you have to declare your pre-existing conditions.

52:50Martin Lewis:They may ask for a premium if you have pre-existing conditions, but often if you're struggling to find just standard travel cover, it's often a good way to go even with paying the premium. doesn't work for everyone but it's worth trying and when you're doing your holiday abroad and your travel if you've got substantial pre-existing conditions can be quite tough you might find it easier just to go and do a comparison for a single trip for the individual trips that you're going to i wish you the best with it anna okay so let's look at car hire abroad and i've got some questions and they're more they're replicated by some tony for example or David as well, that's a similar question.

53:29But when you have your own insurance to cover that question, when they say, look, for an extra€15 a day or whatever, you'll be covered even if it's your fault, etc., etc. How does that work? Okay, so you have, just checking, when you get car hire, early booking tends to work, go through a comparison site, that tends to be the cheapest way. You have bought a separate standalone excess insurance policy. Is that what you're telling me? I have, and then I normally go to Croatia, and then they say, right, well, they look a bit grumpy, and they go, well, in that case, you're going to have to charge an enormous amount, 1 ,500 euros or something to a credit card just in case.

54:11This is absolutely true. So, look, when you go and hire a car, you'll get to the desk in most cases, and they'll try and do this upsell, because you've got basic insurance, but it's the excess policy. it says. I'll basically say, if this car is scratched, I don't know, this is a generic foreign accent. Do not ask me which it is, it's generic foreign. If this car is scratched, you will need to pay the entire amount of the excess just for a scratch. You need this insurance or it will be very expensive for you and you won't get breakdown cover. And they say that and they're charging you 15, 20 euros a day, which in some cases is more than the car, how it was itself, if you got it through a budget system.

54:48And this is where all the profit is. You know, it's the added ancillary that has all the profit in the insurance so rightly as adrian's talking about i would suggest you go and get yourself a standalone excess policy that covers exactly the same thing but you're talking more like one or two pounds a day as opposed to 15 to 20 euros a day the easy place to do it is money maxim which has an excess insurance comparison site and if you're going away a lot you get yourself an annual car hire excess insurance policy you can go by the same routes There are a couple of other discounted places, but if you just want an easy one-stop shop, it's Money Maxim.

55:23So then, as you say, Adrian, this is what happens when you have one of those. You tell them they've got the insurance, and they tut, because these guys are often on commission about it, and they tut, and they, oh, it's not good, it's not the same, and all the things that will go wrong with it. And this is what they'll want you to do. They will want you to leave a refundable deposit to cover the excess. It can be€1 ,200,€1 ,500,€2 ,000. euros so you're going to need to have the facility to do that it will almost certainly they will only do it on a credit card remember they are trying to make this as difficult as possible for you that's why you have hoops that you need to jump through they will want it on a credit card not a debit card it's important to remember that if you don't have a credit card you may struggle with the excess insurance and finally they will usually want you to have a card that is in the name of the person booking a few say it has to be the name of the main driver my safety tip the person who books this should be the main driver and they should have a credit card that has enough room to leave two thousand euros on because any one of those if you break the chain in any one of those they're going to say no that doesn't work for you we won't accept it and that's the problem so you have to be prepared to do that i've done it for years i've never had an issue with it okay And I've stood at car hire desks and I've seen families and they're going, but I thought we have this.

56:46And you can see them being pushed away from it. And I have on occasion gone, you are fine. You're fine. What you've got works. My question is this, though. I found myself worrying. Hang on. What on earth would happen if I did have a bump? So I go back and somebody's driven into the side of the car and it's still drivable. What happens when I give it back? OK, well, we're going to help ourselves to that£1 ,500 you put on the credit card for the excess, and then I have to claim it back from whoever I've got the annual insurance from? I'm not going to answer your question. I'm going to let Matt do it for me.

57:24Matt emailed me a couple of weeks ago to say this. Thank you for highlighting Car Hire Excess Insurance, something I learnt about from you. Very kind, Matt, thank you. My wife and I took it out for our Sicily honeymoon. I reversed into a lamppost on the third day. Probably too excited about the joy art, weren't you, Matt? It was all wonderful on the honeymoon. You were all loved up. There were red Valentine's hearts flying in your eyes and you missed a lamppost. Door, wing and bumper all dented,

57:52Martin Lewis:triggering the full€1 ,400 excess. The insurance covered every penny and the premium was only£21. So we could carry on enjoying the trip without worrying about a huge upcoming bill. Everyone should be considering it. So, yeah, the answer is Adrian. they'll take the money off your card you will then send them what happened the excess insurance company, the stand alone company you'll send them that, you'll send them the details and they will give you that money back that's how it works Right, ok, well it's not without FAF but it does work The safest thing to do is not to have an accident but if you're going to have an accident there's always going to be FAF and you're going to have arguments even if you get the company's insurance there's always arguments about the level of FAF and all this type of thing.

58:37Martin Lewis:So there's going to be faff. But if we just put this in perspective, let's say you're going away for 10 days, they're going to be charging you, say, 150 to 200 euros for this excess policy that isn't necessary when you could be getting it for 20 euros. So the question to you is, is it worth the limited, because I tend to get really good feedback from the excess insurance companies that they tend to pay no problem once you've got the receipts and stuff. I'm sure someone will have had a problem somewhere. The limited faff that that involves for the 180 or so euros saving. OK, got it. Cool. With that, you've been asking me questions.

59:10It's time for me to ask you one. All right.

59:19OK, Adrian, welcome to Money Mastermind. The score, after you got one right last week, currently stands that Adrian has got 20 right and 41 wrong in this three-option multiple-choice quiz, which means, sadly, you remain... N-B-R-C That's no better than random chance Here you are, are you ready? Yes Our Adrian is at a village fate, getting nervous He has, sadly for us Given up his five-life broadcasting career To try and make it big with what has been his long-term secret side hustle Yes, Adrian has a noddy holder tribute act It's Christmas, it's Christmas Can you give us a go? No is the sure answer.

1:00:08Oh, that's the best bit of the pod so far for me. There are literally thousands of people in the tent watching the result of the homemade chutney competition while Adrian is appearing next door in the community centre. It's just him, Hilda and Nancy who are styling it out as they thought it was a noddy and big ears act. And there's a small whippet who looks as if it has made life choices as poor as me when I started writing this question. anyway poor Adrian is there in his glittery top hat tinsel trimmed waistcoat and platform boots contemplating the future, specifically his pension, he had assumed he'd put£2 ,000 a year from savings into a sip a private pension, knowing he'd be earning so much it would automatically claim him basic rate tax relief for him turning his£2 ,000 into £2 ,500 now though he realises the glam rock income may be a pipe dream

1:01:00Martin Lewis:and he's wondering what happens if he doesn't even earn enough to pay income tax. So all that, Adrian, boils down to this question. If you pay£2 ,000 a year into a SIT, which is just a self-invested private pension or any other similar private pension would work the same way, so don't get hung up on the SIT bit, and you are a non-taxpayer, which of these is correct? A, you still get the£500 boost automatically as if you were a basic rate taxpayer. B, you only get the£500 boost if you apply to HMRC and ask for it to be added. C, you do not pay tax, so you do not get the tax relief. I think it's C.

1:01:44Tell me why. Because logically, why would you get tax relief if you don't pay tax? OK, there is definitely logic in that. I mean, I can sense already it's wrong, but I stand by the logic of my logic. You can never sense anything. I don't know that you can sense it. I'm just querying. I'm teasing it out. I'm seeing where you stand. Are you going with C as your final answer? Yes. Pray the uh-uh. Sorry, mate. You sensed right. It was wrong. I was right about something. No kind of point for that. I can't give you a point for that. But well done on that little bit anyway. Now, you may remember we have talked before about pensions for children.

1:02:25Yeah. And children, of course, the vast majority of children are non-taxpayers. so providing the private pension works at relief at source which is where there is automatically 20 % added a basic rate tax so if by the way if you're a higher rate or top rate taxpayer you can get the the extra tax back through your self-assessment tax return because you should be reclaiming all the tax on what you put in but if you're a non-taxpayer there's a rule that says you can effectively have a contribution of£3 ,600 a year into a pension and you get tax relief which means you can put£2 ,880 in, the extra tax is added automatically to give you the£3 ,600.

1:03:01And when we've talked about it in the context of grandparents setting up pensions for their grandchildren, this is because they get that tax relief. The grandchild still gets the tax relief even if they have no income. And that applies to everybody, not just children, it applies to adults too.

1:03:15Martin Lewis:So if you are a non-taxpayer saving into a pension, you still get the effective 20 % relief as if you had paid tax at 20 % up to a maximum gross contribution of£3 ,600 a year. It's well worth knowing, as long as it is a pension using relief at source. There you go. Got it. Thanks, mate. Next time, I will get it right, and I will know it's right. I know, but the problem is you're now 20 right and 42 wrong. And so if you get two more right in a row, then we move you off no better than random chance. OK, I'll do my best next week. And I'm really not trying to trick you. There's no tricks in these questions.

1:03:53OK. That was just a straightforward question, and I don't want to tease you, but we have talked about it before. OK, right. I accept the admonishment and the implied criticism, and I take it in good heart. Now, I've used up your five live time, haven't I? So I'm going to switch. I'm going to switch, and we're going to do like a substitution in World Cup sense. Get the underperformer off. No, it's not the underperformer. No, no, no. Listen, we take Jude Bellingham off. It's done. You know, we've had you there. You've played out. You've performed brilliantly. we think it's time just to have a little bit of different energy and to move it across now and we're going to bring in podcast producer Simon

1:04:29OK so Adrian has left the studio we have had our hydration break podcast producer Simon is no longer pressing the buttons for the music although it's not actually technically him who does that and he's him, we get to hear him live welcome to the pod PPS, how are you doing? I'm absolutely delighted to be here the record so far I've just spent sort of stretching making myself ready for this super sub appearance right at the end. You're limber, you're limber, you're up. Adrian's time has to go, he had to go and record something else, so we're going to be carrying on. I think we've got a few more questions, sort of the odds and ends to finish on random different topics, so why don't we do those?

1:05:02Yeah, yeah, we've got a few to get through just at the end. Angela, roaming charges for USA. We are on Sky and EE, so we'd have to pay charges. Is there a better alternative?

1:05:12Martin Lewis:Yeah, I mean, these days, if you're going outside Europe, it's all about eSIMS. eSIMs is a virtual SIM card, so you don't get anything physical. You can sign up to it really easily. Effectively, it then routes your data and all your data service through the eSIM. I mean, you're probably paying something like a tenner for 30 gig that lasts a couple of weeks while you're in the USA, where you'd be paying, I don't know, seven, eight pounds a day. I don't know your specific price, but typically seven or eight pounds a day it can be if you use your own mobile network. So you wouldn't take calls through it, but you could call through WhatsApp through it using its data on there and you get the data when you're abroad.

1:05:51Martin Lewis:There are lots of different eSIMs, lots of different companies. So go and look up eSIMs. That's an easy win. I've used them many times. It's really easy. Next question is from Faye. She started by saying genuine questions. I'd like to clarify, all questions are genuine. Yeah, we don't like the implication that they're fake questions. But she has quite a serious one. She's saying, if the government wants to keep children in school and have been fining parents for a number of years now to prevent them taking them out, can anything be done to stop holiday price hikes at peak times? If there could, the issue of taking kids out would be reduced.

1:06:21Personally, we always pay the fine as it's still cheaper for summer holidays. And my time with the kids on holiday is more important than school for a week when they were at an age where the impact was minimum. Note, I did not take them out in the final years. Well, look, this is a constant thing that people talk about. The problem is holiday pricing, by definition, if you're going abroad, is not a UK issue. It is a worldwide issue. It is about demand. And clearly in the summer holidays, the UK summer holidays tend to align with other European holidays and, you know, America as well. And therefore prices go up because people want to go on holiday more.

1:06:55So there's more demand.

1:06:56Martin Lewis:And when demand increases under the rules of supply and demand, costs go up. Now, there are lots of ways it could be done. It could be done by spreading holiday dates so that there are more dates that people in the UK have that are not covered by other holiday dates. So different schools go on for different times. Equally, your system, I mean, you're breaking the rules. I cannot officially condone you breaking the rules. What I would say is it would seem to me, certainly when you're not in examination years, there would be a little bit of test acceptance that there is a price issue here. So you allow parents, I don't know, one or two days a year that they're allowed to take their kids out of school under this reason.

1:07:32Martin Lewis:It's like a two strikes and you're out. But any more than that you can be really strict on might be particularly helpful. But unfortunately, the honest truth of it is supply and demand. Now, we can be clever here. You know, so if you're in Scotland, then going away before the English school holidays start can often be a lot cheaper. If you're in England, then going away in the last couple of weeks of the English school holidays, and the Welsh school holidays are similar as well, can be far cheaper. People always tend to go away in the first weeks, much more expensive. Going away in the last weeks of the summer holiday is often much cheaper to book.

1:08:03If you're in the north of England, even better if you want to go away in those last couple of weeks once Scottish schools are back and you could book yourself to fly from a Scottish airport, you can find that prices get even cheaper. So there are ways to work around this. Nothing is too good. But you're right, it is a real frustration many people find. Although it is worth remembering there are many people who can't afford to go on holiday at all, especially going abroad these days. I mean, we've done a whole programme about going abroad. I am very mindful that when I do polls on it, 30 to 40 % of people do not take overseas holidays.

1:08:31Ilian asks, should we trust airport parking lots that cost more than the flight itself? Looking forward to the breakdown and avoiding the sneaky convenience traps this summer. Yeah, I mean, it's really interesting because booking direct with an airport is both the cheapest and the most expensive way to do it.

1:08:48Martin Lewis:If you're going to do it on a regular shift, then you'll often find it's incredibly expensive. There are a range of different airport parking comparison apps out there. which you can use. And there is a new compare the comparison airport parking tool out there, which I cannot tell you about. And if you go through those, you will often find a much cheaper price. Although occasionally people who fly regularly, there are special routes. If you're booking on the last day, you may be able to get cheap parking. I mean, just to give you an example of the price differentials. This week, if you'd gone to Manchester airport without a booking, it would have cost you£500 a week to park.

1:09:22Martin Lewis:But the cheapest found using a comparison site was£76 a week. Now, to put that in context, that is still a booking on the day price. That's not an early booking discount. And in fact, this could even be done on the way to driving to the airport. You could check and find yourself cheaper parking as long as you're booking before you actually get there. Obviously, it needs to be done by the passenger, not the driver. I'm not advocating a driver does that as they're going there. but the passenger should be doing it. I'll give you another one of my case studies. Rachel emailed I needed parking at Liverpool Airport.

1:09:57Martin Lewis:The cheapest was£94. Thought it was worth checking via the comparison site checker. Literally two minutes later, I'd booked for£68. Simple as that. So the key really is to make sure you're going right across the market and get it searching as many different places as you possibly can. And Manir asks, why do single people have to pay so much extra in single person supplements, especially when we are given a single room? Yeah, this is incredibly frustrating and it's a question I get a lot. Some of it is the economics. Because while you have a single room, pricing for holidays abroad tends to be based on two people sharing a room.

1:10:36Martin Lewis:So the price per person you get is predicated on two people sharing one room. So you have two flights and one hotel room. You have one flight and one hotel room. and the proportionate cost on a hotel of a single traveller, even in a single room, is not necessarily half the cost of two people in a double room. Cleaning, reception, other facilities that go in there, the price does not exactly half. So there is a little bit of justification here for saying that if you were to halve the cost of two people, then the cost of the hotel would tend to be more than half the cost of two people for a single traveller going by themselves and that's where the single supplement comes in.

1:11:22Martin Lewis:So I've done the justification from the hotel industry. Of course we never know whether there's profiteering going in on top of that as well.

1:11:31And then before we sign off Simon let's just finish off some of those tellers. Overseas travel biz I'll start with Anonymous.

1:11:38Martin Lewis:I'm the owner of an airport transfer company and after 30 years in travel I've seen the same mistakes over and over turning up late because the airport's only 20 minutes away until there's an accident, roadworks or acute security not checking passport expiry rules for the country they're visiting, packing valuables, medication and the change of clothes in checked luggage, assuming they'll have mobile data abroad without checking charges travelling with just one bank card, it's a very important point, even if you've got your cheap specialist one, take another one too Hopefully we've covered lots of those in the pod so you're aware of them but it's interesting to see them play out in the practicality Wendy's got an excellent one here if there's more of one of you traveling split outfits between cases if one goes missing you'll still have things to wear yeah and always keep a spare pair of underwear in your hand luggage Denise Claire here Claire is sitting next to me Claire agrees do you keep it yes she nods on that one yeah absolutely because otherwise you would have to wear Lara's outfits wouldn't you yeah I would I don't want to wear Lara's outfits although actually if you've got the right travel insurance policy and your luggage does get lost then it's actually it should actually be quite a nice little shopping trip because they cover you for a certain amount of outfits that you can go and buy new ones i've had that happen to me denise says travel insurance travel insurance travel insurance former british consul here thank you mom trust me you don't want to be caught out with no travel insurance the embassy can't and won't bail you out the fact that travel insurance can pretty much cost less than the price of your holiday manicure or pedicure or the price of two to three airport pints it's an absolute no-brainer though if you and family can afford hospital bills and a private aircraft medical then crack on without it fly economy not false economy go denise i wish i'd read that out in the travel insurance section earlier i love that ian who works as a travel agent says that one of his customers took three valium before she boarded her flight home from canada but she had to be carried off the plane because there was a technical problem before takeoff.

1:13:30Then had no tablets left for her flight home the next day. Oh, wow. There's a... wow. I don't think that speaks for itself.

1:13:38Martin Lewis:Rachel, not in the travel business, but I work in a pharmacy. So many people forget to order their life-saving medication until the last minute. Then expect the pharmacy to have it ready as, I'm going on holiday this afternoon. Please order your important meds in good time. And Sarah says, always remember to not be wholly reliant on Apple Pay or Google Pay to work 100 % of the time. Remember to take physical cards with you. Take more than one physical card. Have backups. Don't have everything in one purse or wallet. Remember to have different pins for all the cards. Very sensible. And we'll finish on this one.

1:14:13Sarah, people who book a holiday to a hot country, I'm just going to add the frustration that's clear in it, then complain the floor is too hot to walk on around the pool

1:14:23Martin Lewis:or the sand on the beach is too hot. as an ex-holiday rep, the things we heard people complain about, you would think it's their first day on the earth. Yeah, flip-flops, little bit of sandals, something like that are always helpful. Sand gets very, very hot. And that, Simon, seems a good way to end. If you are going to be going on holiday in the next few weeks, we wish you a joyful time. If you're not going on holiday, don't worry, we're still here to keep your company on the podcast. Of course, though, you can take the podcast on holiday with you too.

1:14:52That's it for this week. We tend to put out a new podcast episode every Thursday and Monday. The Monday one's the question time pod where you get to ask me absolutely anything and everything open brackets within reason, close brackets. If you've enjoyed today's show, please tell your friends you've been listening to the Martin Lewis podcast and why not subscribe and leave us a review?

1:15:10Martin Lewis:Then your pockets and us will be pleased with you. And if you haven't enjoyed it and you've been listening this long, you've only got yourself to blame.

1:15:34Martin 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.

1:16:18He's the all-time leading goal scorer in professional football. And according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, he's the first active footballer in history to achieve billionaire status. Guess who we're talking about yet? That's right. Good Bad Billionaire is exploring the life and fortune of football icon Cristiano Ronaldo. That's Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service. Listen now wherever you get your BBC podcasts.