Spending overseas on some cards can be muchos expensive. Yet pick the right card, you can smash down the charges to nada.

To get the very best deal, you can’t wait until you go abroad in the summer; you have to prepare in advance. Right now, in fact.

It’s all about stealth charges The very cheapest way of spending abroad is using on the right credit or debit card.

The problem is that the most expensive way of spending abroad is choosing the wrong credit or debit card.

Most charges levied when you use a card overseas are hidden.

You don’t know about them, and they’re not broken out in your statement. The biggest ruse is foreign exchange ‘loading’. Most cards have a load of around 3%, meaning if you buy £100 worth of euros at current rates, you will be charged £103 for them.

So while your bank gets the best possible exchange rate, it then adds this load on, making yours nowhere near as competitive. The cheapest way to spend abroad I suspect some money-savvy readers out there will already be silently mouthing “Nationwide”, as historically its cards have always been top. Wrong. Sadly, after years of building a cheap holiday brand, this year it started to load for the first time. From the 6 May, if you spend outside of Europe on a Nationwide credit card, it now adds 0.84%.

Admittedly, that’s still small, but it’s a move in the wrong direction. Plus it’s increasing again to 1% in July.

So the current overall winner is the Post office credit card, which is load-free everywhere.

Though it does charge 2.5% for cash withdrawals, which is standard (most load, then add withdrawal fees), so you are far better off spending on the card than withdrawing cash and spending that. Abbey Zero is launching on Monday – it is the same but it charges no cash withdrawal fee, so will be the new winner Plus like all credit cards, withdraw cash on the card, you will be charged interest even if you repay in full, though that’s normally only pence. However it’s worth noting that for European spending, the Saga card does just pip the Post Office, though you need be over 50 to get one.

And even better than both of those is the Nationwide debit card, which of course is only available if you have a Nationwide bank account.

It’s load-free in Europe, with no cash withdrawal charges at all. Now just to make it clear, these cards smash bureaux de change; you get a much better rate, boosting your holiday budget by up to 6% at no cost. However, while they’re good abroad, that doesn’t mean they’re good in the UK.

That’s the reason I have a special travel wallet waiting until I hop overseas. In it, I keep a specialist credit card for use overseas, my free European Health Insurance Card and any dollars or euros leftover from previous trips. This way, rather than paying a fee to convert currency, I can simply pick them up again.

The cards from holiday hell

You may be surprised to hear that the worst cards out there are debit, not credit cards. Of course, spend on a credit card without paying it off at the end of the month, and the interest charges will dwarf anything else, but it’s some debits’ deviousness that’s the real problem If you’ve got a Halifax, RBS, Lloyds, Abbey or Natwest debit card, watch out: when you’re overseas, not only will you be charged a cash withdrawal fee; on top, you’ll also pay a penalty every time you spend. This fixed fee can be up to £1.50 a time.

So buy something costing £5 worth of dollars, and they’ll first load 3 percent on top, and then add up to £1.50 on top of that. In means that your £5 purchase costs around £6.65.

If this is the only card, it’s easier and usually cheaper to get foreign currency out before you go. For full card by card info and how to find the cheapest, use the free tool at www.moneysavingexpert.com/spendabroad

Can’t get a new credit card?

If you have an imperfect credit history, or are about to get a mortgage, so don’t want to add any searches to your credit file, one alternative to specialist credit cards is to use one of the growing range if prepay cards. With these, you preload them with cash, then spend on them abroad just like any other plastic. My top pick is the FairFX prepay card.

While it charges a £1.50 ATM fee, there are no charges for spending, no foreign loading, and it can be topped up for free by debit card or bank transfer. It’s also possible to get it via the comparison website moneysupermarket, where the £10 application fee is waived. The only reason it doesn’t beat a credit card is that the underlying exchange rate tends to be slightly worse. Not far behind is Travelex’s cash passport, and unlike FairFX, which can only be ordered online, you can get this from any Travelex branch (including airports), so it can be a last minute solution.

Cheapest Foreign Currency

If you do want the convenience of notes in your pocket, the big sin is to simply get it at the airport before you go.

Quite simply, they know you’re a captive customer, and the rates you’ll get tend to be much worse than elsewhere.

By ordering currency online before you go and picking it up from the airport, you will usually get a much better rate.

I’ve a full comparison tool which finds the best rate for every country in seconds available at www.moneysavingexpert.com/travelmoney. Of course, the one question that crops up time and again is, if you’re going away this summer, should you get the cash now or then?

I’m afraid I simply don’t know the answer: that’s currency speculation. Relative currency rates move just like stocks and shares prices do, going up and down. Just because the pound is weak now, it doesn’t mean it won’t get weaker (or stronger). The only way to know is with a crystal ball. If your bet is the pound will get worse, then buy now, but remember it’s a gamble just as much as a trip to the bookies.

That’s why my focus is always on accepting that rates move and ensuring that when you go you get the very best rates you can at that time.