- Today we're talking about money in London,
where to get and how to spend it once you have it.
And make sure you watch 'til the end of this video,
because I have a little London freebie for you.
First off, the currency
that we use here in England is called pounds.
That's the sign for it.
Sometimes it appears as GBP,
which stands for Great British Pound.
A hundred pence make up one pound.
It's kind of like cents in U.S. dollars,
and sometimes we call it P.
So we'll say something is one pound, 50P.
If you hear anybody say quid,
that's just slang for pound,
kinda like we say buck in the US.
I always recommend to every visitor
to buy pounds at your bank before you come over here.
That way you have a little bit of cash on you
when you first get here in case you need to pay for a taxi,
or pick up some food right when you land.
Your bank should also give you a pretty good exchange rate.
Just make sure you give yourself a few days
to get those pounds.
Sometimes, it takes a few days for your bank
to actually get them to you.
I'd recommend having 50 to maybe 150 pounds on you,
depending on if you're gonna be
getting a taxi from the airport,
which will probably cost at least 50 pounds.
However, don't have too much on you,
because if anything happens,
and your wallet gets stolen or lost,
all that money's gone.
So, if you need more pounds, as in cash,
once you arrive, you have two options.
Your first is that you can find a Bureau de Change,
I think that's how you say it,
which I located in banks, travel agencies,
and in post offices,
as well as the airports and some of the train stations.
At these places, you can buy currency with your credit card.
Or if you happen to have your own currency on you,
you can exchange it.
However, when you're at these places,
make sure you ask about what the commission is
that they'll take, and look at the exchange rate.
Make sure that you're actually getting
a decent exchange rate from one of these places.
Make sure you have an app like XE Currency,
so you can get the current exchange rate.
When you're actually in London, I usually recommend
just looking for a post office,
and going in there to exchange money.
It's super easy, you just need your passport.
And you just need to look for one
of these little post office signs.
And you can just pop in, grab a number, and get your money.
I'll also leave a link down in the description
to the post office locator page.
Your second option is to withdraw cash from an ATM,
or they call it a cash machine here.
If you use your debit card to withdraw money,
your bank should give you a pretty fair rate.
However, you need to check with your bank
before you go abroad to see what kind of additional charges
you will get if you do this.
So for example, a lot of banks will charge
an international transaction fee,
which will be a percentage of whatever you've withdrawn.
And on top of that, they might charge you a flat fee
for your withdrawal.
So it's good to know that because if that's the case,
you're gonna wanna withdraw more money less times,
so you don't have to keep paying for that withdrawal fee.
And also, some US banks have branches over here in the UK.
For example, we have Barclays, and we have HSBC.
So you should be able to use their ATMs here
without any charges.
Even if your bank's not over here,
sometimes US banks will have partner banks.
You can withdraw from their ATMs for no additional charge.
So again, just call your bank up,
tell them where you're going,
and ask them about your ATM withdrawal options,
and about any international fees
that you're gonna accrue when you're abroad.
You can use your debit or credit card
in most places here in London,
so you won't get stuck out if you don't have cash,
like in some other places in Europe.
But again, just check with your bank
to see if you charge directly to your card,
what the fees are associated with that.
I actually used to have a Capital One credit card
that had no international fees at all,
and it saved me so much money when I was traveling.
I'll leave a link down in the description,
linking to information about those types
of Capital One cards.
Tipping, when it comes to tipping here,
we do it a little bit differently.
When you're eating at a pub or restaurant
where there's wait staff that have come
and taken your order at the table,
it's customary to tip 10 to 15%
if you've had okay to really good service.
When you finish your meal and you get the check,
make sure you look on it, and see
if there's already been a service charge added to the bill.
It's usually around 12.5%.
But if there has, then you don't have to tip on top of that.
Also know that in most cases,
that this is an optional service charge.
So if you've had really bad service,
you don't feel appropriate tipping,
you don't actually have to pay the optional service charge.
Just remember that service in England is not like
what we're used to back in the US.
So have a little bit of patience.
In pubs and bars, you do not have to tip bartenders,
which is great, I think.
If you take a black taxi,
it's good to tip the driver around 10%,
but a lot of people just round up to the next pound,
and say, keep the change.
And finally, in your hotel,
you can tip the cleaners whatever you want.
And tips for other staff members
are completely discretionary,
except if somebody's helped you with your bags.
It's usually polite to give them a little bit of a tip.
So if this is your first trip to London,
then you're gonna wanna download my London 101 Guide.
It's free and includes things like links
to where you can get currency,
how to get to and from the airport, and more.
So click the link down in the description to download it.
Or the card that's popping up here.
For more London tips and travel advice,
make sure you are subscribed to my channel,
so you don't miss my videos that come out every Thursday.
If you click, my face should be like around here.
If you click on my face,
you'll find that red subscribe button.
So go on and do that.
See you guys next week.
I get this question all of the time.
What should I pack for my trip to London?
Well, I'm gonna tell ya, and I--