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Travel Money & The Post Office
a better way to buy travel money or foreign currency than at an exchange burea
Passports Applications & The Post Office
Check & Send Service makes your passport applications easier for a cost of £8.17
Travel Money & The Post Office
Whether you live on a council state or in the shires of England before going abroad there several issues you cannot avoid. A passport helps (unless you swimming across shipping lanes in the English Channel), insurance can be a good idea (provided the policy offers what you actually might need) and having the currency of the country you are going to in your pocket when you arrive there is a must. Airport and port foreign currency exchange bureaus tend to be run licensed crooks who often have a monopoly or operate as part of a cartel in order to ensure you that you get the ‘least’ value for in local currency for your English Pound. Sadly if you try buying the currency at the airport or port your leaving from the same is likely to apply.
In the past the only alternative if you wanted to order foreign currency was to go to your bank or your building society and if they did not have the currency in house go back and collect it a day or two later. You can still do this but as they open after most people start work and close before other finish work it can be difficult and not the way many of us want to spend our lunch break. Most building societies offer a slight better service because their open hours are longer and many open on Saturday mornings but many of them do not offer the range of currencies that the banks do.
Put bluntly, if your not up for being ripped off by the exchange bureaus the obvious alternatives like the bans and building societies though theoretically offering better rates of exchange are yet to learn the meaning of the word ‘service’ which you rightly expect when you pay for a service whether it is through a fixed fee or commission based charge.
In recent years The Post Office Travel Money Service has addressed many of the short comings of the banks and building societies. The service has matured and now you buy foreign currency for nearly 70 countries in any Post Office in the UK. Many of these offices mornings when those banks and building societies that are open have long queues.
However the The Post Office Travel Money Service is still accessible when your local post office is closed via it’s 24 hour online service. provided you changing up over £400 of currency.. The great advantage of this service is that if you don’t want to queue up in the post office you can have it delivered to your home. These services are offered free of charge provided you are changing £400 + if you are collecting the money from your post office or if you are changing £500+ and having the currency delivered to your home. The Post Office Travel Money Service in association with American Express also includes Traveller Cheques facilties so whether your going to Beijing Berlin or Bermuda it could be worth your while checking out these and other their travel services before you go***
Passports & The Post Office
***Incidentally the Post Office also a fast track British Passport application service which from our researchers experiences is worth every penny. The ‘Check and Send’ service which is available at most post offices is recommended by Identity and Passport Service (IPS) who process passport applications.
If you take your completed passport applications forms and supporting documents to a Post Office branch that offers a Check & Send service, they will check that you have filled in the application form correctly and that you have included all the necessary documents and the correct fee. Provided everything is ok Check and Send for a payment / cost of £8.17 will send your application to the passport office by Royal Mail Special Delivery..
Thought it is not written in stone applications sent via the Check & Send are also much less likely to be rejected or delayed because of queries.or omissions by the person applying.
