Where is the best place to exchange pounds to dollars?

Q I am going to New York City at the start of December. Where is best on the high street to exchange pounds to dollars?

Flissy

A If your high street is typical, then the answer is likely to be a toss-up between the Post Office and a travel agent. But for better value I urge you to look elsewhere – and organise your finances a bit differently.

Increasingly you can pay for almost everything in the US with plastic. Some cards offer keen rates – almost as good as the “interbank” rate, which is normally beyond the reach of those of us without a few million to exchange. Online start-ups such as Starling, Monzo and Revolut offer the very best deals. But if you prefer not to reorganise your finances too deeply at this stage, my advice is simply to apply for a Halifax Clarity Card; you should have time to get one before you depart. It has no foreign transaction fees, which makes it much better value than the average credit card (and debit cards are even worse), and is usually better than cash.

Of course having some dollar bills is still a good plan. So shop around, but make sure you ask the right question. Ignore the smoke-and-mirrors nonsense of commission rates and service fees. Just ask: “I want $250. How much will that cost me? Then you will be able to compare sensibly.

If that is too much faff, compare rates online and pick up the foreign currency at the airport through a company such as Travelex and Moneycorp. Last time I used this at London City airport to buy about £400 worth of cash, it “saved” £40 on the normal airport rates.

For premier-league savings, you need to be in London. Have a look at what Thomas Exchange is offering; you can reserve online and pick up the cash at one of its offices – eg Hammersmith Tube station if you are on your way to Heathrow, or Victoria if you are going to Gatwick.

Or take a stroll along Britain’s finest foreign-currency artery: Queensway in London W2. Within a few hundred yards, there are two dozen bureaux de change. With lots of tourists selling dollars for sterling – there’s a willingness to turn a quick profit and rates are negotiable.

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Q We are due to fly from Newcastle upon Tyne to Sydney imminently to begin a trip up Australia’s east coast, taking in Queensland before flying from Cairns to Melbourne for a further week. We booked the holiday independently. All our bookings – for hotels, flights, internal flights and car hire – were made on our credit card.

The fire alert in New South Wales means we are now unlikely to be able to complete our journey as planned. Our travel insurers say they will not provide cover as the natural disaster occurred before the holiday began. In these circumstances, would it be possible for us to make a claim for the parts of the holiday we will no longer be able to access from our credit card company?

Pat and Dave O

A I imagine you have been reading the news of intense bush fires in New South Wales with growing concern. The best approach will be to start mitigating your losses immediately. In other words, extricate yourself from as many of the jeopardised aspects of the trip as you can. Given the circumstances, I hope hotels and rental car firms will be understanding. Your credit card will pay out only if the company is unable to provide the service but does not provide a refund.

Next, talk to Emirates and see if the airline will allow you to switch your outbound flight from Dubai to Sydney to Brisbane (or another arrival point). I asked the airline for its position on cases such as yours and a spokesperson told me: “At this stage there has been no disruption to flight operations as a result of the fires but we will continue to keep a close watch and welcome any questions passengers might have through our customer service channels.”

Switching flights will be an easier process if you booked direct; if an online travel agent is involved, it could be tricky. But note that if flights are still operating to the destination on your ticket, which they are, then there is no obligation for Emirates to reroute you. If you do end up flying to Sydney, you can easily find a swift onward connection to Brisbane for less than £100 each, even booking late and allowing for baggage. That will enable you to pick up your itinerary.

At the end of your trip, I predict you will be some hundreds out of pocket because of the disarray. I would have a go, retrospectively, at claiming from your insurer, given that catastrophic fires are something that many of us would reasonably expect a policy to cover.

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Q I’m travelling from Manchester to Nuremberg in Bavaria imminently. I used to fly nonstop on Ryanair, but they have now dropped the route and instead I am routed via Munich with Lufthansa. Flights are all on the same ticket.

I have been told I have to clear passport control and go back through security at Munich with hand luggage. Is that correct? As I’m airside anyway (and with only 70 minutes for my connection) I thought I would be able to clear passport control upon arrival at Nuremberg.

Dave G

A The ebb and flow of European flight links is certainly frustrating, with airlines all too prepared to pull out of routes if they believe their planes and pilots can make more money elsewhere. Ryanair has been “pivoting” a fair amount of capacity away from the UK as a result of what it says is weak demand due to Brexit.

So you have booked the closest equivalent, a trip via Lufthansa’s excellent hub in Munich (which I rather prefer to its other hub and main base, Frankfurt). You will certainly need to go through passport control because you will be on a German domestic flight from Munich to Nuremberg.

You may or may not need to clear security (I’m not au fait with the arrangements at Munich). But it will be a smooth process; the only concern I would have is whether or not there is time to have a drink at the Munich airport microbrewery, which is “airside”.

Should the incoming flight from Manchester arrive too late, then you should automatically be rebooked on the next available flight for the very short 82-mile hop to Nuremberg. The trouble is, there are only four flights a day. If you have missed the last connection, ask Lufthansa to put you on the train – it takes two to three hours, and requires a change of train, but deposits you in the centre of Nuremberg.

In future, you might consider a different approach. With easyJet competing against Lufthansa on the Manchester-Munich link, try an air-rail combination.

A slicker connection, though, is offered via Frankfurt airport’s own rail station. Every hour, a direct high-speed ICE train departs for Nuremberg, taking 2h 23m to cover the distance. The only downside: Lufthansa has a monopoly on Manchester-Frankfurt, so you might find the fare is annoyingly high.

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Q Please explain about the Thomas Cook slots that easyJet and Jet2 have bought at various airports. Does that mean they have to fly the same routes as Thomas Cook did before? And what about the Thomas Cook slots at all the other airports that weren’t sold?

Andrew R

A After the sad collapse of Thomas Cook, as with the failure of Monarch, the most valuable asset has proved to be slot pairs at some UK airports – particularly Gatwick. A slot pair is the right to land and take off at specific times, during a particular aviation season (late March-late October for summer and the converse for winter). For example, a foreign airline with just one flight a day to Heathrow might be permitted to land at 2pm and depart at 4pm in summer, and 1pm and 3pm in winter because of time zone changes.

But carriers with multiple slot portfolios, which is typically the case with UK airlines, can mix and match these slots however they wish. Thomas Cook had a substantial portfolio of slots at Gatwick, Bristol, Stansted, Birmingham and Manchester. All of these airports are to some extent “slot constrained”, at least in summer, and therefore slots have value.

At other Thomas Cook airports, including East Midlands, Glasgow and Belfast international, there are no significant constraints. Any airline can be fairly sure of being able to apply to fly to and from these airports more or less whenever it wishes. Jet2.com bought slots at Stansted, Birmingham and Manchester, which it will use to expand, and easyJet did the same at Bristol.

But crucially they can use these slots however they wish, in any combination with existing slots. Indeed, in some previous “slot-warming” exercises we have seen airlines flying empty or near-empty between Heathrow and Cardiff or Manchester simply to conserve the slots; there are strict “use it or lose it” rules. There is no obligation on easyJet or Jet2 to serve any of Thomas Cook’s former routes. While undoubtedly some of the former European network will be served more or less as they were before, many will not. I am sorry to say that I can’t see Bristol to Kavala in northeast Greece featuring next summer.

Thomas Cook also had a busy transatlantic network, particularly from Manchester to the US and the Caribbean. While Jet2 will not be interested in these routes, Virgin Atlantic will expand long haul from Manchester. So how will it get the slots? Perhaps some from Flybe, which it now part-owns, and buying additional slots from other airlines.

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