The UK pound vs the US dollar tanked just at the wrong time for my Road Trip and so in my mind the price I was reading I just thought of in pounds to make it simpler.

The previous worst rate I can remember whilst away in America was around $1.30 to £1.00 and converted every purchase to see if the price was acceptable or not. With UK politics in turmoil the rate swung around a bit varying from $1.09 to $1.12 in the 9 days I was away.

Throughout my visit I used Chase card (via the App in the UK). Honestly it was the best thing ever. Foreign Exchange is made at the Mastercard rate with no commission taken. You get 1% cashback on purchases and if you have ’round up’ activated there is 5% interest to earn on the total.

It is the first time that I have not taken cash dollars with me to America but to cover tips and incidentals I drew cash from a Chase ATM. Cash withdrawals are free from Chase ATM’s. There is a $3.00 per transaction using other bank’s ATM’s.

The interest on savings has increased to 2.01% from 24 October.

There is the facility to spend from different accounts so I set up an account titled ‘Holiday Munch’  which was loaded with a daily budget and swapped the transactions between the accounts so that there was the correct money remaining at a glance. On this occasion there was £80.00 remaining at the end of the holiday to divide between us.

If you are debating the best option to spend abroad click here