£1billion cost of using debit and credit cards abroad

HOLIDAYMAKERS are losing more than a billion pounds to rip-off fees when they use credit and debit cards abroad, research shows.

The levies on card payments made by Britons in foreign countries are small individually but add up to enormous sums in total.

Tourists also commonly face charges for simple tasks such as withdrawing cash from machines.

According to global payments firm Fairfx, UK holidaymakers spend more than £32billion on their cards overseas every year. To do that, they were charged £217million for using cash machines and £814million for card transactions.

Ian Strafford-Taylor, Fairfx chief executive, told the BBC: ‘When we’re on holiday it’s easy to turn a blind eye to what we think is just a few quid.’ Most British banks charge a fee of 2.8 per cent on credit card transactions which are not in pounds, Fairfx said.

This means a £50 meal would have an added cost of £1.40 if a credit card was used to pay. The average fee on debit card payments is almost double that of credit cards.

On top of this, travellers face several charges if they want to draw out cash from an ATM using a debit card.

This can include a 2.5 per cent fee in addition to the total withdrawn, or about £1.25 on a £50 withdrawal. Another average fee of £1.39 is added for using a foreign machine.

UK-based banks argue that cards protect against fraud and are a more flexible way to pay than cash when travelling overseas.

‘Easy to turn blind eye on holiday’