<p>My son will be studying in England in the spring semester 2012. What is the best form of paying for things other than exchanging dollars for pounds- debit or credit? I'm not sure of the pros and cons of each. Are the charges then converted from pounds to dollars and deducted from his American bank account or, in the case of credit, converted and appear on the credit card statement? Are there extra fees involved with either? Would he use his American card as he does over here? What if he travels to another country? Do they just convert at their exchange rate? Are there special cards for students? I come from the days of travelers checks! Ancient history! </p>
<p>What is the best way to have a phone? Do you use your U.S.cell phone or is there a different phone/plan to look into? Email will be a fine way to communicate, but the phone would be convenient to use for "local" calls or to us here in the States for emergency.</p>
<p>Any help would be appreciated and will at least get me started on the right track. I want to keep the expenses down as much as possible, even though it will be coming out of his pocket for the most part. Thanks!</p>
<p>One easy way to handle money is to use a Bank of America account through Barclay’s Bank ATM. There are no extra fees for this and the exchange rate is decent. BA also has similar arrangements with other banks in some other countries. You can add money to the BA bank account at any time to transfer money to your student.
The cell phone issue is much more complicated and much depends on how the student wants to use the phone. The cell phone situation also changes from time to time so what is true now may be different next year. If one is only doing a semester abroad using a pay as you go plan or monthly plan is best as most other plans require a 6 months to 2 year contract. Argos or Carphone warehouse are good places to visit. Agros may have slightly better prices on the phones sometimes but the plans are pretty identical. The sales people at CW tend to know more about all the phones and options. I use the CW near Trafalgar Sq on the Strand but there are a zillion branches everywhere in London.
The plans need to analyzed by your usage plans. The questions to ask are:
1: How many minutes per month do you need to call within the UK?
2: How many minutes per month do you need to call home? (Some only Skype home)
3: How many texts do you use per month?
4: How much data if any do you want to use per month?
We use an old Sony unlocked cell phone which cost us 5 pounds a few years ago on the Lebara plan with 10 pound top ups. This gives us 10p per minute calls to UK mobile phones and 5p per minute calls to the USA.
My daughter uses an unlocked Samsung Galaxy Apollo Android phone on 3. Cost of the phone was 80 pounds and month fees are 15 pounds for 300 local minutes, 3000 texts and unlimited 3G internet. No international unless you put in a extra sim or add another plan to the 3 SIM. The phone has a decent 3mp camera, google maps, Facebook, and decent internet but uses the battery quickly so one needs to recharge every night. We left one of our old phones with Lebara so she could call home anytime free as we put extra money on the top up which lasts 3 months. The cheapest 3 phones are in the mid 40’s. Argos has the same plan with a better Samsung Galaxy mini for 90 pounds. Most, if not all my daughters friends seem to use 3. Most will either sell their phones in the US as an unlocked 4 band phone or keep it for future travel use or use it in the US if they are on a GSM network.
There are cheaper cellphones but they are tied to other plans like Vodaphone, Orange etc.
The Carphone warehous website in the UK has lots of details. If cellphone usage is minimal you might want to consider a phone with Talkmobile from CW as I think their cheapest phone is about 25-30 pounds and their plan is something like 4p to another Talkmobile cell, 8p to another network cell, 8p landline and I think 4p to the US. Texts are 2p to TM and 4p to others.</p>
<p>One easy way to handle money is to use a Bank of America account through Barclay’s Bank ATM. There are no extra fees for this and the exchange rate is decent. BA also has similar arrangements with other banks in some other countries. You can add money to the BA bank account at any time to transfer money to your student.
The cell phone issue is much more complicated and much depends on how the student wants to use the phone. The cell phone situation also changes from time to time so what is true now may be different next year. If one is only doing a semester abroad using a pay as you go plan or monthly plan is best as most other plans require a 6 months to 2 year contract. Argos or Carphone warehouse are good places to visit. Agros may have slightly better prices on the phones sometimes but the plans are pretty identical. The sales people at CW tend to know more about all the phones and options. I use the CW near Trafalgar Sq on the Strand but there are a zillion branches everywhere in London.
The plans need to analyzed by your usage plans. The questions to ask are:
1: How many minutes per month do you need to call within the UK?
2: How many minutes per month do you need to call home? (Some only Skype home)
3: How many texts do you use per month?
4: How much data if any do you want to use per month?
We use an old Sony unlocked cell phone which cost us 5 pounds a few years ago on the Lebara plan with 10 pound top ups. This gives us 10p per minute calls to UK mobile phones and 5p per minute calls to the USA.
My daughter uses an unlocked Samsung Galaxy Apollo Android phone on 3. Cost of the phone was 80 pounds and month fees are 15 pounds for 300 local minutes, 3000 texts and unlimited 3G internet. No international unless you put in a extra sim or add another plan to the 3 SIM. The phone has a decent 3mp camera, google maps, Facebook, and decent internet but uses the battery quickly so one needs to recharge every night. We left one of our old phones with Lebara so she could call home anytime free as we put extra money on the top up which lasts 3 months. The cheapest 3 phones are in the mid 40’s. Argos has the same plan with a better Samsung Galaxy mini for 90 pounds. Most, if not all my daughters friends seem to use 3. Most will either sell their phones in the US as an unlocked 4 band phone or keep it for future travel use or use it in the US if they are on a GSM network.
There are cheaper cellphones but they are tied to other plans like Vodaphone, Orange etc.
The Carphone warehous website in the UK has lots of details. If cellphone usage is minimal you might want to consider a phone with Talkmobile from CW as I think their cheapest phone is about 25-30 pounds and their plan is something like 4p to another Talkmobile cell, 8p to another network cell, 8p landline and I think 4p to the US. Texts are 2p to TM and 4p to others.</p>
<p>Addendum: Chase Sapphire preferred Visa has no Forex fees so you do not lose about 3% per transaction. There are other cards which also do this including a Pentagon Visa and some expensive airline cards.</p>