The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent terrorist threats and have raised their security level from “Miffed” to “Peeved.” Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to “Irritated” or even “A Bit Cross.” The English have not been “A Bit Cross” since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies all but ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from “Tiresome” to a “Bloody Nuisance.” The last time the British issued a “Bloody Nuisance” warning level was in 1588 when threatened by the Spanish Armada. 

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It’s painful enough to watch your friend grimace as he forks over his debit card after running out of cash for the day, or uses an American credit card for a big purchase.

Fees for that kind of transaction are brutal: usually around 3-5% or even more with smaller banks.

But exchanging your semester’s worth of money before you take your flight is even stupider for a number of reasons:

1. Exchange rates fluctuate dramatically, at least during our times, and unless you read the market well, you open yourself up dramatically to exchange rate risk.

2. Theft. Nothing’s more enticing than a giant wad of cash.

3. Budgeting. It’s hard to keep track of what you’re using when the bills look trivial when compared to the whole stack.

4. Theft again.

1. Open a Bank of America Student Checking account and have your parents deposit money into it. You can take money out of it in London, free of any fees, from any Barclays ATM.

2. Have your parents sign up for a credit card with CapitalOne and have you as a co-signer. 

3. Take your BofA debit card, your CapitalOne card and bounce for England.

1. CapitalOne has zero foreign transaction fees. Nada.

2. BofA has a partnership with Barclays, which is pretty much everywhere in London. You can withdraw cash from any Barclays ATM free of charge. No foreign transaction fees.

Watch out for the following things however:

1. Using your debit card to pay for things directly will incur a 3% foreign transaction fee. Always use cash, not your debit card. 

2. When you withdraw cash from a Barclays ATM, your money is exchanged from USD to GBP at the current exchange rate, which may or may not be good.

Make sure you have some pounds exchanged before you board your flight for emergencies, taxi fare from Heathrow to your residence, etc. Seems obvious, but when you’re thinking about the hundreds of clueless teenagers and parents who aren’t even there to see them off, this sort of things becomes less obvious.

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Follow these steps and tips, and you should be good. Board your flight and make sure to take advantage of the free, unlimited booze on international flights. You should be of age, if you are over 18.

See you on the other side of the pond!