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Find the cheapest travel money in seconds

Martin Lewis, moneysavingexpert.com.

The problem with travel money has always been that there are a myriad of charges which confuse the actual rate.   Many people think “commission free” makes it cheap. It doesn’t. All it means is you don’t pay a fee, but it’s likely you’ll get a worse exchange rate.

In the past when interviewed on how to do it the cheapest way, I told people to ask lots of providers, ‘How many euros/dollars/yen will you give me, after all fees, for my pounds?’ and go with the one that offered the most.  The problem with this solution is it lacks the charm of a direct answer, so a few months ago I started to work with my team on an automatic solution to it; after all almost of the best rates are on the web, so there had to be an easy way.   So it's quite exciting for me that today I've got my new Travel Money Maximiser tool up and running.

Free £60 Sony Walkman mp3 player, but go quick

Martin Lewis, moneysavingexpert.com.

Free £60 Sony Walkman mp3 player, but go quick No scam its true. Apply for a Sony Pulsecard via some websites and you get 11,000 pulsebeat points, this is then enough to get one of Sony's sexy mp3 Walkmen worth £60 (and that's not a list price, its the price you'd actually have to pay to buy it). To get the points all you need do is 'spend on the card', but as spending isn't defined this means you can just go into a supermarket, by an apple or a pack of sweets and bish-bash-bosh you're done!

However this deal is rumoured to be ending very soon probably Tuesday (or it may shift to other websites). I keep track of all available current credit card freebies on my

Does Bank Charges Loss Mean Anything?

Martin Lewis, moneysavingexpert.com.

According to a report on BBC News a district judge has ruled against allowing someone to reclaim bank charges.   As discussed here before, the campaign to reclaim charges is something I've been heavily involve in, in fact this morning I put out a press release that over 3,000,000 template letters have now been downloaded from my bank charges reclaiming guide.

This result was a bit of a shock, but there’s no cause for panic. This is not a precedent setting case (in other words no other court has to look at this decision and follow it). Across the country the banks are still paying out many tens of thousands a day see bank charges success reports.

My strong suspicion is ....

Gain £100 from your old mortgage lender in a phone call.

Martin Lewis, moneysavingexpert.com.

I saw a welcome stampede to get cashback from mortgage lenders last week. Normally I don't like having my inbox swamped, yet this was a welcome triumph.  It's all to do with to mortgage exit fees. I did my usual weekly slot on LK-Today (the post 9pm part of GMTV) about the fact that ...

Shame on eBay floggers of 'bank charge letters'

Martin Lewis, moneysavingexpert.com.

My in-box has been inundated with complaints from people who've seen 'template letters to reclaim bank charges' being sold on eBay, all asking if I can do something about it.  Sadly I can't.  While I've no proof, my strong suspicion, and that of my correspondents, is that the sellers didn't draft the templates themselves or do the research involved, but simply copied those freely available from my Bank Charges Reclaiming article and/or other free activist sites.

Part of me wants to cheer: I'm happy reclaiming bank charges has become so mainstream that money hungry profiteers on eBay are actually selling the templates on eBay.  Yet I'm saddened those people consider this is appropriate.   Then again, this is the nature of eBay; I've written many times on the Golden Rules of eBay buying, which importantly includes 'if you're buying information always check via Google that it isn't available elsewhere for free.  I regularly see links to my articles or free site tools like the Flightchecker or Callchecker on there.  Yet what can you do?

Never take a 0% credit card out of your wallet

Martin Lewis, moneysavingexpert.com.

The nastiest trick that credit card companies play sounds dull; it’s called the 'order of repayments'. Yet it can cost you thousands. It works like this: you transfer your existing credit card debt to a new card that charges 0% for a year. So far, so good. If you spend on that new card you will be charged at the standard 18% rate on the new money borrowed. Not great, but fair enough, you might think.

But think again. If you now try and pay off the debt on the card you'll soon discover that all your repayments automatically go towards paying off the original debt charged at 0%. This means the expensive new debt - that charged at 18% - is effectively trapped accruing interest. You will be unable to pay it off until you've cleared all the cheap debt - which can take years. This can add hundreds, perhaps thousands of pounds to your final bill, negating the point of re-financing through a 0% card in the first place.   

I've been warning about this for years (see Best Balance Transfers) and now, the Department for Trade and Industry has...

Bank Charges Ruling Delayed

Martin Lewis, moneysavingexpert.com.

The OFT has delayed giving its opinion on whether it is legal or not for the high street banks to whack consumers who slip only a few pence into the red with penalty charges of up to £30 or more. Instead it's going to mount a full investigation (read Paul's earlier post for an explanation of the issue).

Now, let me declare an interest before I spout forth on this: I'm one of the guys behind the reclaim the charges campaign. No fewer than 2,150,000 free template letters have already been downloaded from the bank charges article on my site, so I'm party pre.  Yet in the interviews ...