Roaming Charges and School Holidays

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Products and technologies from our global brands, Norton, Lifeelock, Avast and Money Lion See it in action at genendigital. com Almost everybody will be accepted for this car. You should get your travel insurance as soon as you book if you have already booked it, then you should get your travel insurance now. Are paying more than they would do if they did my suggestion, which is just ban above inflation mid contract price rises. You said this right, He was wrong. Get off it, you're paying too much Hello, I'm Martin Lewis and this is the cningly named The Martin Lewis podcast. I do wonder what that's going to be about And this is on big topopic episode where each week we lead on one main subject to help you save. Usually most of it comes from my BBC radio five live show with Adrianne Charles but not this week It's a pod only, though Adrian did join me for the first hour so you'll get to hear his dulset tones too. In today's episode. Our big issue this week is all about travel tips, tricks and hacks with the summer holidays on their way. Yes, while you're thinking about packing your trunks or bikini, I'll be packing the pod with things you need to know or do now to slash cost and stress When you get there. Weave questions and my answers too On the cheapest way to spend abroad, travel insurance, roaming, single person supplements, there's ms on Ryanir, passport checks and more Plus, on a separate note, this week I was giving evidence to the Commons Public Accounts Committee. about broadband, mobile and energy bills. So we're going to run through a little bit of that with you. We'll talk why haven't we seen ennergy standing charges be lowered Wh why the regulators' rules for broadband and mobile have in my view backfired and actually increased the costs that you pay and then onto water there isn't a unified social tariff. How ridiculous. The tellellers this week follows the holiday theme again. Travel reps and those who work in the holiday business tell us the secrets of the trade that can help us well away. And this week's Mastermind is all about pensions. Will you get it right? More importantly, will A I like to than you So S everybody. So Adrian, I'm going to welcome you today because we're in the pod only space now which is a slightly different world to the world than we normally are when we're live on the radio. How are you feeling pod only? different quality of air. Is it like England playing in at high altitude or is it a rareified atmosphere? It's actually the opposite, It's like playing by the deead Sea There's so much oxygen here. It's a richness. Expect your lgbs to be tiring and your voice and your brain to be. I mean, mastermind, you're going to go, It's easy. I don't know what the problem's been with this for years. I mean it's a totally different way of working. Okay, G bring it on, bring it on. So you've been giving evidence to the Commons Public acccounts C committee Yeah, so I was called to give evidence over energy bills, broadband and water, specifically whether regulators are up to the job to help people especially vulnerable people. I did it on Monday. It was quite an interesting session. I was there alongside a representative of Citizens Advice and a representative of the Consumer Council for Water. What they do is they put us on first and we build up all the problems and all the things that are going on And then afterwards they talk to the regulators and they start questioning the regulators. I've never done public accounts committee before. I've given evidence to commce committees many, many times. Public accounts slightly different because it's sort of semi linked to the national Audit Office. So it was an interesting one to do. What's fascinated me though, is put some of the clips of the evidence out on my social media channels and they've gone absolutely massive I mean, there've been really big millions of views. And so it's quite interesting because obviously This tends to be seen as a rather arcane arm of what goes on in Parliament But I think when you're showing it in isolation and it's issues based, people do tend to feel A little bit interested in it and but kind of a counter argument to that. I think increasingly it might be seen where the real debate, the real scrutiny the real content happens whereas Often what happens in the chamber is generating more heat than light. You're probably right. I mean but it's interesting because I'm going through my daughter at the moment, I explaining to her the difference between the legislator and the executor and the judiciary. She's thirteen and trying to do separation of powers with a thirteen year old. It's actually quite interesting how you get your head around what is the difference between government and Parliament? becausecause of the way that our system works where you have MPs who are both part of the legislature and part of the executive, that is complicated. And I think it's important for people to understand because it was interesting. I had a couple of people really rallying about you certain people saying things. and it's like, well, they're not in government. They're in Parliament. Parliament isn't government. So when you're giving evidence here, these committees, yes, you do tend to get good debate and you get the issues raised, but it doesn't necessarily mean they have the power to do anything They have a power to do a report, they have a power to hold government to account, but they don't have the decision making power because that resides in government one thing you talked about is an issue with energy comes up again and again and again on this podcast and that's standing charges Tw thirds of my mailbag on energy complaints is very simply about the scaning chargeer. The moral hazard that you have to pay three hundred and fifteen pounds a year just to have the facility of having gas and electricity, that we have older people who don't use gas for two thirds of the year and having to pay a daily charge for it. and that people who are lower users if they reduce their usage, it doesn't make any difference because they're still paying the standard charge. That is by far and way the thing that drives people mad the most. And I always use the analogy if I go to buy a book from a bookshop They don't say, sorry, you have to be a member of a club and pairs each month in order to buy a book because we have fixed costs I don't have to pay my my fix costs are factored into the price of the book. Why do we have to have fixed costs factored into a daily charge? and variable cost factored into a unit rate. The shift could be done. and I was very hopeful with OGem. We had long conversations that it was going to bring a dual price cap A. low standing charge, higher unit rate, and the normal standing charge and lower unit rate. And my view was that should be people who were on the price cap should be automatically shifted to whichever one was beneficial for them based on their prior years usage with an opt out basis if they chose not to That was stopped and then it was moved to this system of we're going to allow swwitches tariffs and mandate switches tariffs which have a lower standing charge. Now my big problem with that is that doesn't help anybody who's vulnerable because they're the people who don't switch that the price capap was set up to protect in the first place. So switchers tariff don't help. And then we're going to trial switch' tariffs. and they'll be coming in spring. haven't seen any y erest, how did you feel? wasce I mean, it was received very well. There were lots of nods and agreements and things like you can come again, especially when I was talking about the crapness of the way that things work. There was an interesting question that came from one of the MPs was, do you think this is deliberate? Is it conspiracy? And my answer, as it often is, Adrian, when it is something that goes wrong and people start to talk about these complex conspiracies to make things happen I tend not to believe it. I tend to think it's crap ns I tend to think it's just people, you know Regulation and organisations aren't up to it rather than they're deliberately malfeasance to try and act against the public interest. There were quite a lot of nods when I said that as well What what are the other big points you tried to get across? I had a very long list and it was an hour's session So one of the first things I talked about was the nature of the price cap and the confusion. So we have at the moment, the price cap has just gone up. It's gone up by thirteen percent on average. The price cap, of course, only governs your price if you're on a standard tariff of your company. The default tariff, the I haven't switch tariff, and it's going up thirteen percent. And as I explained to the committee, as a effectively a five month time lag. so the rise in July is basically on the back of what happened when the Middle East conflict started in March yet the rate of fixes that are available right now those fixes Their rate is based on what's happening now. So you currently have a seventeen percent differential. You've got a duality of pricing, one based on past price rises and another wholesale rates have come down a little bit based on the fact that rates have come down So currently, people who fix can save seventeen percent over the price cap But most people don't because this is just too confusing for a lot of the public and especially for vulnerable customers. I also went on in Energy to explain that my real issue is, Wh I agree that OGem has made it so that if you're on the price cap, the default tariff, the backstop tariff that's meant to be there for people who don't switch, they're meant to switch prepayment is cheaper It is cheaper than paying by direct debit There's no competition in prepayment markets. So everything I talk about fixing and doing that, it very, very rarely do we ever see a tariff? where you can fix in the prepayment market occasionally with smart prepay, but not in others. And most vulnerable people are on prepayment. Now the way to cut your bills and I'm not saying it's a great big suddenly everything's going to be cheap, but it is cheaper is to get yourself onto a competitive tariff like a fix or a specialist tariff But there aren't for prepayment. So there was a real problem there. Again, the specialty was in vulnerable people. In water, well, I had a lot to say on water, but I think my biggest point is There are social tariffs on water that up to four million people are missing out on which is where you can have the amount that you pay capped Now the thing about those social tariffs is frustratingly every company has its own rules to who qualifies Some are based on what benefits you get, some are based on what income you have, some are based on an income assessment. someome tell you, as I pointed out in the evidence, that it's based on your equivalized income. And I asked all the MPs, did any of them know what equivalized income was And they didn't and nor did I. And then they later asked one of the water regulators who said, yeah, and explained it. And it's a rather arcane way of calculating a certain equivaled income depending on the number of people and the number of bedrooms. But clearly, if none of the MPs on the committee know what equivalized is, you can't expect vulnerable people to know it. So there's this huge problem with the social tariff that I can't even tell you who's eligible My rule of thumb is if you weren't under twenty six thousand pounds, you could check it out. But then people get annoyed at me because they go, I under twenty two thousand. I didn't qualify because every single water company is different. And the government has just missed an opportunity to have a universalised rules on the social tariff, which is just the obvious no brainer thing that they should be doing. We should quite simply have are social tariff rules that apply to every water company so that it's easier to communicate and there isn't a postcode lottery. There are lots of nods on that one too. We'll see if we get there. I mean I talk lot, the one final thing I'll do is we put out from money saving expert, we put out research this week. based about broadband and mobile bills. So do you know the new transparency rules, Adrian that's been in for about a year? We have talked about it. It's not a must of mind, don'try Yes, I believe so. Yes. So you're not supposed to It's about changing the tariffs in mid and midtererm. Yeah. so what happened is Ofcom brought these rules in. It was not what I and citizens advice and others were suggesting basically said We used to have mid contract price rises for mobile and broadband that were inflation linked. So there would be inflation plus three or four percent whichich is, of course, inflation in its own right, and I and many others campaigned about that. And it went ballistic in twenty twenty four. when we saw prices rising by seventeen percent What Ofcom chose to do was effectively get rid of inflation linked price rises, but not get rid of mid contract price rises by saying firms need to tell you in pounds and pence. When you sign up for a contract The rise is going to be. so they might say it's twenty pounds now and it'll go up four pounds next April and four pounds in April after the two year contract Now, I thought that was a bad solution. Yes, it's transparent, but again, as I said to the MPs, it's a bit like me saying, it's okay if I come up and punch you in the face as long as I've told you in advance, I'm going to punch you in the face. You know, Are you're going to have a huge price hies? and we've done analysis of forty seven thousand tariffs, and I put this research to the committee And in seventy five percent of them The new transparency system means people are having to pay more than they did on the system it was replaced to try and correct. And in ninety nine percent of them So virtually all of them The new system means customers are paying more than they would do if they did my suggestion, which is just ban above inflation mid contract price rises. So the regulator has come in, intervened in the market and its intervention has resulted in customers right across the country having to pay more And now, as I said They should just do the obvious. The bleeding obvious is you just ban. Now I'd like to say, of course, what we all want is them to ban all mid contract price rises. The problem with that is this strong argument comes back from the regulator, which is a proxying for the companies on this particular one, saying if you do that, it might damage investment and it might because firms are unsure what might happen over two years, they might put the upfront price higher which is why I have the compromiser saying it shouldn't go up above inflation And as I think the phrase I used to the committee and I did like it was one of those, you know you sometimes say something you go,h, I'll to remember one. So' see if can remember proper was They should have just done the bleeding obvious. The only thing that isn't obvious is why they haven't done the bleeding obvious and just ban above inflation mid contract price risiceses. I me mean it is an absolute outrage and the regulator is defending itself on this one, but there isn't any defense. is its actions mean we all pay more when we sign up to a contract So you can imagine how I wententh for that one too Okay before we get to the rest of the part price cap went up this week. Still worth fixing? Yeah So let's just go through where we are right now. So again, strong reminder ennergy price cap dictates your price if you're on your company's standard tariff Virtually all borrowing home energy they price at the price g. So when it goes up thirteen percent, the price you pay will go up thirteen percent. The July price gap of course, is the least important because you've got July, August and September is what it covers. That's the lowest use period of the year. You know, it's a quarter of the year, but we only use about fifteen percent of our energy in that period What really happens is what's going to happen after that in October and January We're now halfway through ber period becausecause as I mentioned earlier, the price cap is based on a timelag and we're halfway through the period, the assessment period for the October price gap and it's been high all the way. I high or very high all the way So we're currently looking at the October price capap being, well, some analysts say half percent lower, some say one percent higher The same as July is the easy way to phrase it. It is very, very likely that the October price cut won't move much. and that's compared to the July price cut that's gone up thirteen percent. So it's going to stay at those high levels. And while it's more crystal ballgazing, the most important period, which is January, February March is looking to be pretty similar too. Therefore, what you actually have at the moment is this perfect clarity of comparison If you go into comparison site today, Unlike last week, when your savings would have been against the April price gap, even though the price was going up Your savings today will be against the current July price cap and the October price cap is likely to be similar And with less certainty, I would say the January price gap is likely to be similar So the amount that it tells you can save over the next year now is a much more relevant figure than we have had And the cheapest fixes available today as we're doing this, as we're recording this are seventeen percent cheaper. than the current price cap They of course, as it's a fix, you can lock in the rate Now this is the simple solution. There are other options out there timeim of use tariffs,V tariffs, solar panel, tariffs, other things But if you're on the price cap If you're on that standard price and if you're not sure you're on the price cap, you almost certainly are unless you're on a fix, unless you're on a special deal. you're on the price cap It is a no brainer right now to get yourself onto a hopefully a whole of market comparison, go do a comparison, lock in a cheap fix that's fifteencent, sixteen percent cheaper than what you're paying right now. and you know it won't rise over the next year and you're already going to be saving straight away. And I would say if you don't go to a whole of market comparison site, I think there is only one that's whole of market by default, and I'm not allowed to mention it, which might give you a clue as to what it is But if you don't go onto one, then what you always need to do is scroll around for the little button that says show all tariffs because many of the cheapest tariffs don't pay comparison sites, so they hide them unless you tick that button, so you need to tick that button and then you'll see all the cheapest deals. But absolutely, this is almost Perfect time to compare right now because you're getting a true comparison over what's going to be happening over the next year. And if you're on the price cap, it's a pants cap. Get off it, you're paying too much. So Mart and our aim today is to give people a us listen to everything they need to know and do now to be properly prepared to go away this summer, minimizing cost and stress so you can just enjoy yourself. T Rember brother. Okay. to get us into it It a good idea to have some joiny music. Is that producer ask Simon? has he got anything for us? That scares me when you say that, Simon. I like it he's quaring. I mean doesn't his feel like He does have a lying on the sunbed and you put your towel down early in the morning with a cocktail and an umblla in it and a straw, me and you, Adrian sitting by the beach in the breeze N'ot the phrase I don't know but we'll chill the breeze anyway. You shoot the breeze. Why is it?re not I don't know, but I do know we can't keep this going for the whole thing, Camon. Shall we try? No. No, let's just fade itly we just want to give you the idea. We' got the idea now. Let's start with a tip. You say check your passport as soon as you can Yeah, so let's do there are some of the things and it's interesting because we're going to be doing the tellers later, which is what people who work for airlines or hotels or overseas travel businesses say. And one that just came up time and time again is for heaven's sake, as early as possible, check that you have a valid passport because it is a nightmare. And I've had people myself who've got in touch with me, who've been knocked out when they get to the airport, they're not allowed on their plane because their passport isn't valid or even worse than that They're allowed on the plane, they get to the destination, they get to customs, they get passport and they're told it's not valid and they're sent home. I even remember one family and it was the child whose passport wasn't valid. And they're like, we can't send our child So obviously they all went home and they have to go back. So here are the passport checks that matter. I want you to get your passport out and check now On the day you enter the country Your passport has at least six months left on it. or three months if you're going to the EU And even so if you're going to the EU, even if it has three months left on it, that yourre passport under ten years old Now that might sound confusing because passports tend to last ten years. The reason is you can't do it anymore, but you used to be able to Say you were renewing your passport after nine years and three months so it had nine months left on it. you would be able to add the nine months left onto your ten year passport so your new passport would last ten years and nine months and therefore, it is possible for your passport to have more than three months left on it be over ten years old in the EU, that is prohibited. So if any of those things are sounding close then I would strongly suggest you go and look up what the passport requirements are for the specific country you're going to. If you've got a couple of years left on your passport and your passport iss well under ten years, you're fine Don't worry, but if you're getting close to those barriers that I've just mentioned, the six months or three months in the EU left on the passport, or that your passport is going to be over ten years old, then just do a check now of what your specific country's passport requirements are. It wouldn't be a bad idea to send yourself a send later email for about Yeah a year beforeess as well on I have in my outboss I haveven' b fifty or sixty delay sends. That's how I operate. I've got a tip on that itself. so did I, but as I mentioned to you, I ran my phone over onn holiday and that's a phone. and I've lost all the later ones that were scheduled to be sent Oh you probably need to do a screen grab of them. I have slightly different because I work with a s of corporate email system So that mine has stood on nowed. So I'm sort of saying I thought mine were, but apparently not anyway. That's a shame. Send yourself a picture of your delayed send emails but do it on normal seent. so it's in the inbox rather than the delayed send outbox. it's probably not the tips we should be doing. No Where are we going next? Okay, we want some questions on how to spend abroad mostly effectively We'll start with Vicki So she wants to know, you take foreign currency already exchange in the UK cash from the ATM abroad, use a British card to pay or get a travel money card. If it's a travel card then which one And do you use it to pay or to withdraw money from the ATM abroad Just a few just a few to get you started. Well I like that question because basically it's, Martin, explain what the cheapest way to pay abroad is. Yeah. So I will do exactly that now. All right So plastic tends to be your winner. credit or debit cards or in some cases prepaid cards or they work in a slightly different way. This is the thing to understand. normally when you go abroad and you use your UK credit or debit card The bank or the credit card company gets a near perfect exchange rate on the day So whatever the exchange rate is, what's called the spot rate, the market rate, the bank or credit card company is getting withithin fractions, tiny fractions of a percent of that spot rate, that perfect rate, the best possible rate. What most cards do is they then add a non sterling exchange rate fee And that fee is normally typically around two point seven five percent. So let's call it three percent ferees of explanation, whichich means If you buy something that costs a hundred pounds worth of euros on that day's exchange rate, you will pay one hundred and three pounds for it. Theyre saying if it's a hundred pounds worth of dollars or one hundred pounds worth of one or whatever it is, wherever you're spending It's going to cost you one hundred and three pounds. So the best way to spend is to get one of the many and there are loads of them these days, specialist overseas spending cards What they do is they don't add the non sterling exchange rate fee So you get the same near perfect rate on the day wherever in the world you're spending. the bank or credit card company do And that smashes the pants of Burea Duchange Now depending on which card There are a range of charges that may be on these. There's often ATM charges So there are three types of charges available on ATMs. First, if you're taking money out of an overseas ATM, the cash machine itself can charge you. You can't avoid that apart from just going and see if there's another cash machine nearby that has a lower fe The second point is may be an ATM fee on the card? whichich means literally it says every time you use this card from an ATM, we'll charge you one pound or two pounds Third is for credit cards specifically. You'll know my role, Adrian, if you're using a credit card for reward or perks, you should always pay it off Itful Infull exxactly 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 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 I when want I say withdraw cash. I mean withdraw cash overseas, and to spend the cash abroad, you are usually far better to spend on it Now I mentioned pre papid 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 the re the rates's bad. You've done badly and the raate moves against you 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 that 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 when I'll do half myth 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 So what do you think the best? C on All right, so let me go through. I'm going to give you three cards. I have to say there are about twenty or thirty specialist overseas spending cards these days 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 The Lloyd's Ultra Visa card As it's a credit card, you should only be doing this if you're paying it off in full 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 game 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 mentioned them in this section. Why is it my top pick You get the near perfect exchange rate and if you're spending on this card also get for the first year one percent cashback both on UK and overseas spending. So it's a good cashback 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 one percent back. So a quid per hundred pound you spend, you spend ten thousand pounds a year, that's one hundred pounds back. If you're abroad, Then another way to think about it is not only are you getting the perfect exchange rate, but the one percent cashback means you're actually getting one percent better than the perfect exchange rate, you're getting better than the spot rate The main negatives 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 minimize 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 the Chase debit mastercard. So this is a debit card The reason I'm picking this is because it's easy to get Chase is a bank account varant app 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 is a debit card, so there's no interest obviously, and 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. it's not a wide everything you 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? Any of 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. while on holiday and 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 Gbbit mastercart Now To get this, you need to switch, but switchers to first direct at the moment are being paid up to two hundred pounds depending which route and which sites you go through to switch So you can be paid two hundred pounds for switching bank account, which would be good for your holiday spending money Debit card also has near perfect exchange rates abroad and overall it's a top service bank account. So Loyd's ultra is if you just want a stand alone 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. F direct, you'll get two hundred quQid, which is going Probably for most people be more than you get cash backack on Lloyd's. You get two hundredquid switching bonus and you get the debit card with it, but for that you have to switch bank account that's I'll st So, 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 stterling What is the best option, Martin Adrian answer it Always, always the local currency. Euros, eos, eos if you're in the euro zone Well done. finally, after all these years working together You got one. Yeah, 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're paying 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 profit to the exchange rate, they give you a worth exchange rate. And this is a reason why when you say No, I'll just pay in euros. It goes. Are you sure Do you really, really want to? We 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. up p in yours 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 youve got a specialist overseas card, you want your specialist overseas card to do the currency conversion for you, that's why you got it evenven if you've got a bog standard UK card in general and I promise and my wife Always give me a frown. When I go abroad, I actually go to a raft of different cash machines night Every time I buy something, I check the exchange rate just so I can say this I have never seen an overseas shop or ATM that gives me a better rate than just a bog standard non specialist UK card does with its two point seven five percent exchange fee 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 I've never seen one when I've been abroad and I've never heard anybody tell me that they've 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 Slive says S I be withdrawing cash from an ATM abroad on a bank God, 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 fordrawing 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 thirteen percent APR interest which works out about a pound per hundred on a month if you're paying off in full So if you're paying off in full That Loyd's card has perfect exchange rates plus one percent ATM fee A normal debit card would have two point seven five percent 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 There is Monzo good for traveveling abroad as I heard the percentage rate is low Monzo is in the list of specialists overseas credit cards, it doesn't add a sterling exchange rate fee, so you get the near perfect exchange rate. I 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 cashback, but these are the ones I'd be getting if I was signing up today. The only issue with Monzo from memory is 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 two hundred pounds a month. Is it two hundred pounds a month? She was checking like, I got it right, Adrian s am of villids, which is quite l Anty wants to know do you actually need to take cash these days It depends where you're going If you're going to a modern developed country I wouldn't bother taking cash. I would just take my specialist card and I'd 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 many places. mean some countries like go to Iceland and places like that and cash is like, what's that? So you know, they cash for you have to pay for the toilet, they've got to 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. 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 and make a bit more offbeat or somewhere that's in the developing world, then cash may well be useful Okay, There's been a change to Ryan Ey's policy for taking children on board That has indeed. Yes, Ryanair doing the right thing for once. Let's hope that doesn't need a right to reply. But anyway, yeah, so Ryanair was under investigation by the competition of 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 Nor other the rairlines are doing it, it has now changed its policy So if you are traveling with a child aged two to even obviously they're under two, they're sitting on uniing anyw If you're traveveling with a child aed two to eleven Ryanair willon randomly allocate you Free seats so that one parent is sitting next to the child aged two to eleven 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 In pretty much all cases, other members will be separate because what Ryo 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 traveveling with your children and they're under eleven, I mean different airlines have different ages, but Germinany eleven 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 T us. What have you got for the T us? Well we're not breaking that very much to be honest because the tell us is Well we did it last 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. ten AM 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 audence. No, you can't have your room It's o'clock You're checkking out. you can just feel it. Kippa 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 priceices you can get elsewhere as cheaply. But if you can, booking direct can often save you. If you're a cashback site user and you're getting the cheapest price vus site that offers cashback, And that cashback can be on hotels. it can be sevencent or eight percent then you might find that reduction overcomes it Kath, learn 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 absolutely right. And it's interesting because when we go abroad, if we're staying somewhere, the first thing I do, I always make make sure my daughter knows the name of the hotel And I suppose we should do actuallyually 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. withith 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 deomotic on just banged by that. I would add to that, you know, 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 eight toormented me for months, cost me a fortune in Kiropidi before it finally managed to get it out. because I mean I don't even blame the hotel if it guests to smashed a glass You know, and you're always a tiny little bit's going to be left. I mean, I didn't I did complain the hotel. I didn't expect any recompense, but it was a pain in the backide 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'reaying away. It's interesting.ave you ever watched fourour in a bed? Channel four program? I haven't, the mind's slightly boggling. It's not donon't worry. It's basically they have four couples who run bread and breakfast they all say each others and they rate each one. are the amount they attack over the cleanliness And they go lifting up the mattress and spotting hairs under between the mattress and the bed stand underneath and going around and curtains. And you just think, actually If you've got a different guest in every day Cing to such a high level of hygiene It's really quite difficult. you don't have that when you're living at home because okay, 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 asking for your money back It sounds stupid, but so many people do it. Yeah, good tip from Bonny. We've got loads more of these agen. whyy 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 Okay, traveling tunes. you have a big warning about getting it ASAB I know, but quite a few people struggle to know how to do that. H's Jean's question I have yearly travel insurance which needs renewal in August if I book now for September and change provrovider in August, will I still be covered for a holiday with a new provider Hokey Turkey. let's do the ASAB. Many people will know this. I've been tried talking about it again and again 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 Lxicon ASAB stands for as soon as you book 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 y Now Yes, we don't go Now Now it's done. It needs to be done. and the reason I 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 That's the ASAB rule. 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 with'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 I say some of you will have heard it before If I bought a tennis rackquet 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 refund. 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 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 Can you remind me of Gean's question because I went off one She has yearly travel insurance needs re renewal in August. 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 With an annual policy which covers you for all your trips away in a year You need to have an annual policy in place the time that you book If that annual policy is still live when your holiday is due, that's very simple. If it isn't As in Gean'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. So 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, she would be covered In most annual travel policies, I have to do the You got a check in most annual travel policies she would be covered. Now the easiest way to stop jurisdictional problems is to get a annual travel policy with exactly the same firm in that circumstance. So then it's covering you the whole period three, but it generally wouldn't work or be that different anyway. But you have to have that policy go forward. Worth noting Most providers only let you get a policy up to ninety 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 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 Whenile 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. justust one holiday. So let's say your holiday dates will the seventh to the fourteenth of September What you would do to be covered and to fulfill my ASAB roule is you would go and get your single trip policy now. You would put in the dates that I won't cover for the seventh to fourteenth of September But because you have once you've paid for that policy You've got the policy. evenven though some something think, well, hold on, but I've only paid for policy for seventh and fourteen, 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 sudenly thought about it People often ask me about packaged bank accounts in this. someome really good package bank accounts available at the moment actually. Those are ones where pay a monthly fee at twelve, thirteen, fourteen 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 ongoing annual travel insurance policy that is automatically redone each year for you. so you are covered We've got wellre not too much a question as a statement from Susan a salitary taily so everyone should have to take out travel insurance. occuring in Spain F thirty two years old, no preree existing health conditions, I had a stroke ten days ago After treatment and many tests they found a hole in my heart and did surgery last night. The five minute ambulance from my hotel to the first hospital and the initial short consultation that determined I had to go to a specialist hospital an hour away was seventeen hundred euros in itself, so imagine what the final bill will be like, thank goodness took out good insurance and thought, thank goodness you're okay there, Sus. Very glad to hear, okay, Susan. It's really interesting because I was doing I did a thing called the National Money Assembly recently where I went to a six film college and it was streamed to three hundred schools and I took questions from The Six Hormers was part of financial education with the charity Young Enterprise One of the questions was from an eighteen 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 becausecause travel insurance for someone your age costs about seven quid you know, a seven, eighty nine quid at the cheapest price. Clearly, your holidays cost you two hundred two hundred and fifty quid. If you can afford the holiday, you have to be able to afford the insurance as well. That might explain all the things it covers. So thank you, Susan for your soalitary warning. It's really important. Okay, Aually another one, when my daughter went away traveveling, 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. so always be careful. If you're doing a trip longer than thirty days someome cases's twenty eight, but longer than thirty days, you need to check your annual insurance will cover it. Sometimes they will, you know, if you're going for thirty one, you can just pay a small extra premium for them to cover it. That isn't too bad. But thirty days tends to be the cut off period once you're moving into something where you have have you have to have special cover Nin am monkon, how does the G Hick work and what does it cover That's the global health insurance card that's replaced the European health insurance card. th 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 G Hick 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 surgery at the same cost for a local So if it is free for a local It is free for you and You can sign up, You should you never pay for the G hick. I have to be careful here, aggent, because it's one of those redundant acronymsm syndrome ones. You can't say G hit card becausecause it stands for Gobalalth insurance card, then you take 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 shyter out there trying to get you to pay for it. You don't need it. Check if you've got an E hC or G hC. 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 access on your travel insurance policy. Yeah, 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 at responding to my calls, so I saw a private GP for eighty quQid I 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'd got a G hC after hearing your information cab to a public hospital was x rayed in three hours and ruled fit to fly home tootal cost. one hundred and four euros instead of a thousand euros plus Make sure you and everybody in your family group has a valid E hick or G hick Anna's looking for holiday insurance It sounds like she's been recently treated for cancer. So preree 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 traravel compompared 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. Nationwide it tends to be pretty good for this. So I think it's eighteen pounds a month with the nationwide that you pay You get all the famiess mobile phones covered and UK European breakdown cover, and you get worldwide family travel insurance with no maximum age limit, which is very important You do and should you can do this before getting the policy. You have to declare your preree existing conditions. They may ask for a premium if you have preree existing conditions, but often If you're struggling to find just standard travel cover. often a good way to go even with paying the premium. Do doesn't work for everyone. but it's worth trying. And when you're doing your holiday abroad and you'll travel if you've got sububstantial p 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 Okay, so Let's look a car highire abroad And I've got some questions and they're they're replicated by some Tony for example, David as well. That's a similar question. but When you have your own insurance to cover that question when they say, look, we' For an extra fifteen new rows a day or whatever, you'll be covered even if it's your fault, etceta, etcetera. 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 then I get to 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, fifteen hundred euros or something to a credit card just in case This is absolutely true. So look, when you go going and hire a car, you'll get to the desk in most cases and they'll try and do this upsell for because you've got basic insurance, but it's the access policy. It says basically say If this guy 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 sketch. You need this insurance O it will be very expensive for you and you won't get breakdown cover. And they say that and they're charging you fifteen, twenty euros a day, which in some cases is more than the car h it was itself, if you got it to a budget system. And this is where all the profit is You know, it's the added ancillary that has all the profit in the insurance So right these 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 fifteen to twenty 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 excess insurance policy you can get 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 So then As you say, Adrianne, 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 go Oh, it's not good. it's not the same and all the things that will go wrong with it them This is what they'll want you to do They will want you to leave a refundable deposit cover the excess. It can be tw thousandve hundred euros, fifteen hundred euros, two thousand 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 If you 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. I just and I've stood at Chard desks and I've seen families and they're going, but I thought we have this and you can see them being pushed away from it. And I have on occasion gone You are fine. You'll find what you've got works. My question is this though If I found myself worrying hang on What on earth would happen if I did have a bump So I'll go back in somebody's driven into the side of the car and it's still driable What happens when I give it back? I said, OK, well, we're going to help ourselves to that fif thousandteen hundred quid you 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. Matt emailed me a couple of weeks ago to say this Thank you for highlighting car hire excess insurance, something I learnnt about from you. Very kind, Matt, than 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, I weren't you at. It was all wonderful on the honeymoon. You were all loved up. There were red Valentine's hearts flaganging ryise and you missed a lamppost Door, wing and bumper augented, triggering the full four thousandteen hundred euro excess The insurance covered every penny and the premium was only twenty one quid So we could carry on enduring 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 access insurance company, the standalone 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 Well, it's not with that fast, but it does work or. I mean, the safest thing to do is not to have an accident. You know But if you're going to have an accident, there's always going to be FAF. Somewhere down the line. Yeah, and there'd be FAF with And you're got to have arguments that if you're doing it, even if you get the company's insurance, there's always arguments about the level of FAF and all this type of thing. So there's going to be FAF But there's if we just put this in perspective, let's say you're going away for ten days, they're going to be charging you, say one hundred and fifty to two hundred euros for this excess policy that isn't necessary when you could be getting it for twenty euros. So the question to you is Is it worth the limited because I tend to get rid of good feedback from the excess insurance companies that they tend pay no problem once you've got the receipts and stuff. I'm sure someone would have had a problem somewhere. The limited fAF that that involves for the one hundred eighty or so euros savings G it With that, you've been asking me questions, it's time for me to ask you one. All right Okay, Adrian, welcome to Money Mastermind The score after you got one right last week currently stands that Adrian has got twenty right and forty one wrong in this three option multiple choice quiz. Which means sadly you remain That's no better than random chance Here you are. Are you ready? Yes. Aur Adrian is at a village fate getting nervous He has, sadly for us, Givven up his five live broadcasting career. To try make it big with what has been his long term secret side hustle Yes, Adrian has a nody holder tribute at. It's Christmas Hey It's Christmas. Can you give us a guy? Is' the short answer Oh, that's best bit of the pod so far 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 B bigig 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 trims with waistcoat and platform boots contemplating the future, specifically his pension. He have assumed he'd put two thousand pounds 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 two thousand pounds into two thousand five hundred pounds Now though, he realizes the glam Rck income may be a pipe dream And he's wondering what happens if he doesn't even earn enough to pay income tax All that Adrian boils down to this question If you pay two thousand pounds 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 hung up on the sit bit. And you are a non taxpayer Which of these is correct A You still get the five hundred pound boost automatically as if you were a basic rate taxpayer. B O get the five hundred pam boost if you apply to HMRC and ask for it to be added See You do not pay tax, so you do not get the tax relief. I think it's safe Tell me why Because logically why would you get tax relief if you don't pay tax Okay, there is definitely logic in that. I mean, I can sense already it's wrong, but' stand by the logic of my. You can never sense anything. I don't know they can sense it. I'm just querying, I'm teasing it out, I'm seeing where you stand. Are you going with C is your final answer Yes Pay the. Sorry, mate. You sensed right. It was wrong. I was right about something they don' get a 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. Yeah. And children, of course, the vast majority of children are non taxpayers. Providing the private pension works at relief at source, which is where there is automatically twenty percent added basic rate tax. So by the way, if you're a high rate or top rate taxpayer, you can get 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 three thousand six hundred pounds a year into a pension and you get tax relief Which means you can put two thousand eight hundred and eighty pounds in, the extra tax is added automatically to give you the three thousand six hundred pounds. And where 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 So if you are a non taxpayer saving into a pension, you still get the effective twenty percent relief as if you had payid tax at twenty percent up to a maximum gross contribution of three thousand six hundred pounds a year It's well worth knowing as long as it is a pension using relief at source. There you go got it. Next time Next time, I will get it right and I will know it's right. I know, but the problem is you're now twenty right and forty two wrong And so if you get two more right in a row, then we move you off no better than R. I'llll do my best next week. And I'm really not trying to trick you there's no tricks in these questions. Okay. That was just a straightforward question and I don't want to tease you, but we have talked about it before. Okay, 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 sanscri. G the under performer off ' be under the performer. 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 Okay, 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 you doing? I'm absolutely delighted to be here.ent the record so far I just spent sort of stretching, making myself ready for this super sub appearance right at the end. You Limber, you're Limbert, you're up. Arian'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? Yeah, 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 would have to pay charges. Is there a better alternative? Yeah I mean these days, if you're going outside Europe, it's all about ESims ESIims is a virtual SM card so you don't get anything physical. You can sign up to it really easily. Eectively it then routes your data and all your data service through the ESIM. I mean, you're probably paying somethingomet like a ten for thirty gig that lasts a couple of weeks while you're in the USA, which 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. There are lots of different ESMs that lots of different companies. So go and look up ESIs. That's actually easy win. I've used them many times. It's really easy. Next question is from Fey. She starts about asing genuine questions. I'd like to clarify all questions are genuine.. we don't like the implication that But she has quite a serious one. She's saying if the government wants to keep children in school, ' been fining parents for a number of years now to prevent them taking them out anything be done to stop holiday price hikes at peak times? If there could, the issue of taking kids out would be reduced. Personally, 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 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 so there's more demand. 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 at 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 a little bit of tk 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. 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 holiday 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 Wels 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 Samal the Day is often much cheaper to book. If you're in the north of England, even better if you want to go away in those last couple of weeks on 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 Cf would go on holiday at all Eespecially going abroad these days. I mean, we've done a whole program about going abroad. I am very mindful that when I do polls on it, thirtycent to forty percent of people do not take overseas holidays. Illian 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. 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 Pe who fly regularly, there are special routes if you're booking them the last day you 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 five hundred pounds a week to park But the cheapest found using the comparison site was seventy six pounds 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' 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. The cheapest was ninety four quid Thought it was worth checking via the compare the comparison site checker. Literally two minutes later, I'd booked for sixty eight pounds 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 Maner asks why does 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 two people sharing a room 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 traveler 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 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 traveler going by themselves. and that's where the single supplement comes in. So I've done the justification from the hotel industry, of course We never know whether there's profiteeering going in on top of that as well. And then before we sign off, Simon, let's just finish off some of those tellers. Overseas Travel Biz, I'll start with anonymous. I'm the owner of an airport transfer company and after thirty years in travel, I've seen the same mistakes over and over, turning up late because the airport's only twenty minutes away until there's an accident, roadworks, or au at security. notot checking passport expiry rules for the country they're visiting, packing valuables, medication and the change of clothes in chezckched luggage, assuming they'll have mobile data abroad without checking charges, traveling with just one bank card. That's a very important point. evenven 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 spatch aair of underwear when you have 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 Laras 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 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 inssurance, travel insurance travel insurance, forer British consul here. Thankk 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. that 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 had to be carried off the plane because there was a technical problem before takeoff. Th then had no tablets left for her flight home the next day. Oh wow. that's wow think that speak for itself, 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 one hundred percent of the time Remember to take physical cards with you, take more than one physical card, have backups donon't have everything in one personural wallet. Remember to have different pins for all the cards. Very sensible. and we'll finish on this one Sarah People who book a holiday To a hot country, I'm just want to haveide the frustration that's clear in it Th complain the floor is too hot to walk on around the pool, 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 sandals, something like that always helpful. Sand gets very, very hot. And that Simon seems a good way to end. If you aren't going to be going on holiday in the next few weeks, we wish you a joyful time. If you're not going on holiday, donon't worry we're still here to keep your company on the podcast. Of course so can take the podcast on holiday with you too That's it for this week. We tend to put out a new podcast episode every Thursday and Monday.