Calis Beach and Fethiye Turkey Discussion Forum
Information and Services in Turkey Section => Banks, Interest, Money Transfers, Insurance => Topic started by: charlste on March 03, 2019, 19:52:08 PM
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Whats the best debit/credit card for making purchaes in shops,restaurants etc abroad.
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I would say Halifax Clarity Card is best for us for purchases
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What is the Starling card you mentioned Keith?
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That’s good too Charles but not a credit card as such. I use it to withdraw currency locally - transfer it from my bank account to Starling account, then go and withdraw it from an ATM in resort with my Starling card. It’s great because you don’t need to take out more than you need that day.
You need to have the money in the Starling account to take it out. With Halifax Clarity you pay for your purchases like a normal credit card at the end of the month/statement date.
You can also pay for meals, purchases etc with Starling - but again the money needs to be in there first.
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Starling, Monzo, N26, Revolut etc are all widely accepted. They're not credit cards though, so you have to pre-load them before use.
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I prefer the debit card to be honest.
When the starling card is used in the atm abroad do you have a choice of which currency to withdraw?
Ie in turkey would it be gdp/euro/lira
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We use Halifax Clarity card when in Turkey for hotel payments etc as no charges and also for duty frees at airport.
Just opened a Starling account for this summer to use in Calis not used it yet but am loving the simplicity of it all so far, seems to have good security too doing the video and passport uploading.
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I prefer the debit card to be honest.
When the starling card is used in the atm abroad do you have a choice of which currency to withdraw?
Ie in turkey would it be gdp/euro/lira
I think that depends on the ATM you are using. I always took TL out and at a great rate each time.
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I see Starling etc don't charge to withdraw abroad but what are the ATM fees like in Calis please?
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I didn’t get charged anything by them Sue.
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Oh, I like that!! Thanks Keith.
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We too have been looking at one if these cards.
Our daughter uses Monzo so we were just going to use that but it seems there is more choices than we originally thought.
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Has anyone used the Barclaycard Platinum credit card as it's supposed to be fee free abroad until 2023 for both transactions and ATM as long as you pay in local currency? I ask as our current Saga card which was fee free for transactions is to close at the end of March and we are considering this card thanks
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Yes, I've used it without any charges.
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Thanks KKOB useful to know
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Not used a debit/credit card abroad before.
If i use one in a restaurant is this when they ask if you want to pay in sterling or turkish?
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Normally it is just in TL Charles and your bank will set the exchange rate. It's generally ATMs where you get the option, and the choice is let your card issuer set the rate or accept theirs - which is generally dire...
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Sooo very soon I will be trying my new Starling account in Turkey, so do I just go to any ATM or does it need to be Akbank so I don’t incur any charges or can you use any ATM without getting any charges and just wivdraw TL? I have preloaded it with some spends...
Thanks for any replies :)
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You can use Starling cards in all ATMs and for purchases without incurring a charge.
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Brilliant cheers for info KKOB
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Halifax Clarity for me. and pay it back on the same day beats any exchange rates
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That’s good too Charles but not a credit card as such. I use it to withdraw currency locally - transfer it from my bank account to Starling account, then go and withdraw it from an ATM in resort with my Starling card. It’s great because you don’t need to take out more than you need that day.
You need to have the money in the Starling account to take it out. With Halifax Clarity you pay for your purchases like a normal credit card at the end of the month/statement date.
You can also pay for meals, purchases etc with Starling - but again the money needs to be in there first.
Can you convert to Lira/Euros on the card and then just pay in the shops,etc with it? Like you can with Revolut?
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Sooo I went to wivdraw tl from my prepaid Starling account I tried x2 ATM’s which were Granti and another which I think was Finas, Garanti was displaying a 5.5% fee with a rate of 7.36 Finas it looked like the screen said 6.32 ( surely they can’t differ by that much) so again I got my card back then tried Yapikredi which on looking online I don’t think I got a fee charge and didn’t see anything on screen at ATM the rate I got from that bank was 7.278 so I’m happy with the Starling account defo, it does save the kerfuffle of trying to wivdraw Sterling from my Nationwide account...
Oh and there is now an Akbank ATM in the what was Kipa car park now Migros but I’m pretty sure it is not working yet and not sure if it despenses Sterling as I could only see a euro and a dollar symbol 😀
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Karen I can’t quite remember exactly but I think there is an option to accept exchange rate or let your card issuer set the rate. You need to choose the second option.
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Ah thanks very much Keith much appreciated I seem to recall a message like that on the screen and thinking “what do I do now” so got my card back!
Il have another try later...
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The ATM bank's exchange rates are shocking - always reject the rate offered and take whatever rate your card issuer gives.
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Sooo this time I used my Starling in the Akbank ATM in Fethiye I asked for the money to be in tl, I did get in a bit of a kerfuffle as the message looked liked it was asking me something about having it in euros so I didn’t know what was coming out!
Anyway once home I logged on to my Starling and the transaction was there converted and the rate I got was defo the highest & about on par with the Kuveyt bank, Finas and change shop were lower...
I’m very happy with the Starling account nice and simple and no faffing around changing gbp to tl.
I shall no longer bother using my Nationwide account when here.
Go Starling bank and thanks for the info getting started up with it.
Go CBF :)
:) 8) :)
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Fantastic Karen, glad you finally fell in love with it :)
I love sitting on our Calis holiday balcony, transferring £100 from my bank account to my Starling account then walking round to the ATM to withdraw it in TL at a great rate.
While we're on the subject, another one to watch is eBay - I bought an item from Germany last week (priced in euros) and paying using the preferred way - Paypal - it worked out to be £117. I chose to pay using the fabulous Halifax Clarity Card and let Halifax set the rate - I paid £112 for exactly the same item.
Paypal are really convenient but NOT good on looking after your foreign exchange purchases.
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Yep I totally love it no more hoping to get GPB from the Akbank and then going to change it at who ever is offering best rate espec in the heat of August, in January here we were only able to get sterling once and that included both Akbanks in Fethiye along harbour road they just had no GBP.
There is also a new Akbank along the market road as well as the new one in Migros car park but I don’t recall seeing a £ sign.
Ah that’s very handy to know re PayPal il remember that in future ;)
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Does the Starling card limit the amount of cash you can withdraw. I’ve got a TransferWise one and currently you can only withdraw £200 a month in cash.
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£300 a day
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Thanks
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When you transfer the £100 keith and then go to the atm how do you know how much lira to withdraw.
Presumably you wouldnt know the exact exchange rate?
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If it was me and the TL rate was still hovering around the 7.30 mark I'd withdraw 700TL
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Well I have a rough idea, if the rate is 7.35 I'll add £100 to the card and take out 700TL - then you get a notification from Starling telling me how much I withdrew in £s.
You can add to the remaining or transfer it back to your current account at any time so it's not an issue really.
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If it was me and the TL rate was still hovering around the 7.30 mark I'd withdraw 700TL
Yes :)
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Just tried to download the starling app from google play and it says my device is not compatible for this app.
My device meets the mimimum requirement so i dont understand that.
Anyway i have found an older APK but not sure if i can trust the download.
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And the Starling account pays you interest Charlste I’m not sure what the % is
It really is a super account so far Iv wivdrawn tl twice with no charges and a better rate then the change shop & my own Turkish bank we’re offering on the same day...
I just did a rough calculation of how much tl I wanted to wivdraw...
Sorry can’t help you with the app problem as I’m not too techy, I got mine on an Android device and also on IPad if thsts any help!
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I’m on a roll now with Starling! Today I wivdrew 50tl ( no fees) YapiKredi atm just got home checked my account and on conversion I got 7.3324 so 50tl at present equals £6.82 scary!
And thsts with the rate normally being a wee bit lower after the weekend ;)
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I have just been told by starling that the app is not available on android devices.
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Hasn’t Karennina got it on Android? Also many people reviewed it favourably
(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20190408/7129004d332ae584e8cc73d7aad4006b.jpg)
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It appears the app is not compatible with tablets according to starling.
I would have thought the app could be installed on a tablet as well as a smartphone.
I bought a more up to date tablet today with android 8.1 and it is not compatible with that.lol
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Ah I see :(
Seems a big lost opportunity for Starling
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Oh what a shame Charlste and like Scunner has said Starling will be the losers...
I have a Samsung Galaxy phone ( think it’s Android) not the latest by any measure and also have it on my IPad...
Il double check my iPad as come to think of it I don’t think Iv ever accessed it from ipad
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Errrrr.... Yes it is ! I use it on my Samsung S9.
https://www.starlingbank.com/download/
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Thanks kkob.
I couldnt see how it couldnt work with a tablet yet could with a mobile phone.
I cant get it to download but will keep trying.
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Followed your link kkob and it says its not compatible with all my devices.
Just bought a new tablet today which is bang up to date.
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Got a new phone and downloaded starling app.
Went to ing cashpoint in calis and it says do you want to accept our rate of 7.67tl.i accepted it only to find on the starling app i had got 7.43tl
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I used it yesterday in Majorca and got 1.132 euro/£. The offered rate although I can’t remember precisely, started with 0.9
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Iv used my Starling a fair bit while here I check the live XE rate and if good I get some tl Iv always had st least what xe are showing some times a wee bit more...
Weirdly last few attempts at a Yapi Kredi atm it’s now showing il be charged a small fee so I declined each time and am now using Akbank with no charge tho their atm is a tad confusing cos it displays a messsge asking if you would like to covert the tl to the euro rate or something really similar (hard to read with a smudgy screen and sun glare) of which I always say no and have been getting a good rate still from Starling 😀
I still love it soooo much ;)