The best thing to do is keep it for your next trip and when I was in a position to travel more regularly than I currently do, this was my default position.
However, this is not an option for everyone, or me now, so what to do?
I have €290, plus change, to convert back.
If I was to buy €290 today, it would cost me £212 (courtesy of the Post Office Travel Currency website), however changing it back would only net me £181, a difference of over £30, and this is pretty much the norm for all tourist exchanges.
Most of these High Street exchanges highlight the fact that they charge no commission, (years ago there used to be a commission charge of around 2% to change money back, but the rates received were higher), however, using a buy back rate that is 15% lower than their selling rate appears to me to be a commission by another name.
Another option is to sell the currency onto any friends and family who are going away. This works better if the exchange rate has dropped slightly since the original purchase, if it has gone up then they would get a better deal with a fresh exchange.
In the past I have sold my Euros on eBay, but their fees were much less in those days.
The option I am considering this year is to use a specialist currency buy back operator, the drawback with this is that Euros would need to be posted, obviously by an insured route. At today's buy back rate, my €290 would net me £204, less the cost of the postage. This is clearly much better than using a normal exchange.
It would be so much easier if all UK personal bank accounts accepted both sterling and foreign currencies with no additional charges.
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