Money Saving Tips: Cash, Cards & ATMs in La Tania

The days of Travellers Cheques and Bureau de Change offices are well & truly over and any sort of cash is fading away. We can only think of the Ferme-Auberge d’Ariondaz (aka The Cow Shed) near the Bel Air Restaurant in 1650 and the Ball Trap clay pigeon shooting between La Tania & Méribel Village that insist on cash only. Probably needed for some taxis and mountain refuges too but bars, restaurants, shops, ski hire, lessons, passes, supermarkets all expect cards – France was way ahead of the game with teenagers using their Carte Bleu to buy a McDonalds way back in the 90s.

But unlike in the UK we haven’t seen anywhere go contactless only and not accepting cash. There will always be someone who prefers cash of course and even offer a discount – but it’s certainly not like the Euros in Germany this Summer where plenty of large bar / restaurants were cash only (and they just happened to have a cash machine on the premises too!).

Contactless / Cards
Just about everywhere takes contactless, but note that there is a €50 limit (on cards not phones) in France unlike the £100 limit in the UK. Another difference is that you may find the contactless process is still used above the €50 but that you get asked for your PIN rather than having to insert a card in to a reader – note that new touch screen card readers scamble the numbers up instead of the normal keypad arrangement!

New Fintech operators such as Starling and Chase offer interest earning current accounts to use the international Visa / Mastercard rates without the common 3% foreign transaction charge of many mainstream banks use. Monzo and the soon to be regulated Revolut are other fee free options and there are certain accounts with Lloyds, First Direct, HSBC, TSB etc that do offer fee free spending abroad.

WISE (formerly TransferWISE) offer free personal and business accounts in a variety of currencies and you can choose to withdraw from a Euro Account or your Sterling Account on the same debit card. Second home owners can now set up all their direct debits including Government Property Taxes from free WISE euro accounts instead of using traditional French Banks that charge monthly fees.

Credit Cards with no foreign exchange charges include Santander Zero, JaJa, Halifax Clarity, Barclaycard Rewards Visa and Blip.

Although cash is fading out you still need it for tips! Certain restaurants are adding a Service Charge / Tip by default (which should be clarified and detailed who gets it really.) Service Compris meaning service included is often printed on your bill though legally it is technically included in all French restaurant bills, whether they indicate it or not. Leaving a tip “pourboire” to your waiter is of course optional and personal.

Some card machines do have the option of “Do you want to add a tip?” – but cash is preferred – and we haven’t yet seen in France the USA version of 3 buttons with the only options of 18%, 20% or 22%.

Cash Points / ATMs
Finally, when getting cash from a cashpoint machine be very careful! The wording about withdrawing amounts in Euros or Sterling and using variable exchange rates or fixed amounts is very confusing. The machine above at the Tourist Office should not be used when you’ve hade a few drinks!

Always select the amount in Euros and accept the “variable, not guaranteed exchange rate” it will then ask you to confirm this but display the amount in sterling to try and confuse you and accept their terrible exchange rate. Take Care! You will still get charged around €3 to withdraw €200 anyway.

As an example, this Summer the “variable, not guaranted rate” was 1.18 and the machines exchange rate was 1.03 – these didn’t include the €2 or €3 fee. This was similar in most of the machines around La Tania, Le Praz and Courchevel 1850 (4 different machines in La Croisette building) but we think Credit Agricole des Savoie is now the worst charging €5 for a €200 withdrawal on a UK card.

We noticed that the Bank de Savoie does not charge a fee and selecting a Euro amount gets you the full previous day international exchange rate with a UK card. At least the one in Bourg Saint Maurice this Summer did… Using UK Santander accounts (and their machines abroad) or Barclays with ATM Global machines and Banque Populaire ATMs would appear to be other options to avoid fees.