I’ve just noticed there’s been quite a hike in exchange rate, looking at my January to October pension payment in my French bank account… only a few euros up, but it all helps…
Is this likely to hold for a while … what are your thoughts?
I watch it daily, even though I am not ready to do an exchange at the moment having done one at 1.17 a couple of weeks ago, but I am frankly surprised at the general rise.
Very difficult to choose the right moment, I didn’t need to do it then, but I thought it had peaked. Still better than being at the mercy of a direct transfer at the bottom of the cycle though. 
It is down to the likely rise in interest rates coming in UK shortly
(or if you are a Brexiteer due to the worldwide markets that have just opened up to UK sellers, or the 4% drop in GDP preducted- form your own mind!)
I’m intensely interested in this topic as all my sources of revenue are £ and are / will be translated into Euro for the tax calculation. Also buying a K of euros each month for rent. And when oh when to buy hundreds of K to buy a house…?
Swings can be enormous, e.g. today saw 0.6% - that’s about a years interest on sterling just in one day- timing is everything, and its still just a gamble.
I was told by one currency advisor last November they expected 1.20 £ / euro by end 2021. It’s kind of floating that way - well actually more bobbing up and down that way, or roller coasting or whatever.
I checked the euro bank the other day for the average 1 Jan to date - it was 1.1604. It started out in January at 1.10 - and the highest I saw was 1.19 about 5 days ago.
Here’s where I went - you can see the rate for every day over whatever period.
I’d be interested in hearing what peoples strategies are to max their euros from £’s. Up till now, apart from the rent money, I’ve just been using the credit card as I go along, but been thinking recently maybe buy some at a high, and put into the starling euro account and just use that - a 0.6% swing is outstripping the credit card conversion fee!
Oh - and of course also strategies to minimise them for the tax return! 
Yippee… had the DWP payment for November zapped into my CA bank account… 15 euros more than last month…
I might go mad with that… 
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To be quite honest @larkswood , if you worry about getting the absolute maximum that is possible for the conversion, you will go nuts! I bring across about £10, 000 at a time when the rates go up somewhat and it’s nearly as high as it’s going to get at the moment so I may well bring the rest across from the sale of my house. We live in our rather primitive second home at the moment and it desperately needs upgrading (some form of heating would be nice )
Using a credit card conversion rate seems to me to be an expensive way of doing things. Haven’t you got a French bank account you could put money into as it comes across? Just thinking - feel free to ignore me as I am in no way a financial guru - life is too short 
when you’re pulling a large sum over… it can be very difficult to make “that” decision…
Will the rate go higher?? is always a nagging question…
Many years ago, after much fiddling with 10K here and there… we finally bit the bullet. Yes, after we’d moved the lot… the rate did go up a little… after a while… but by then, we were past caring.
We felt so much better that finances were sorted with no more uncertainty…
We have our DWP pensions paid directly into our French bank account… they seem to get a reasonable rate… and we live on what we get each month… I’m 15€ richer this month…
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All our UK pensions go into a UK bank and, as soon as there is 5 or 8 thousand in that I watch the rate like a hawk, and then pounce. Sometimes I get it right, at a peak, and others, not so. But it all evens out in the end.
We do have a French income, my 2 small pensions from working here, and some savings that we haven’t had to touch as a backup, so it does give us room for manoeuvre.
The last transfer I did was at 1.17 a couple of weeks ago or so, and immediately the rate continued climbing. Given what a ballsup is being made of governing the UK at the moment I am astonished that it goes up at all. 
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Hi Angela, the CC I have converts at the visa rate, about 0.5% to 0.6% off the ‘true’ rate - or ‘near perfect’ as Martin Lewis says. Then it gives 0.25% cashback - yes, on foreign purchases!
I like @David_Spardo 's approach though and might try that on a few monthly shopping budgets and top up and spend from the euro account. Knowing my luck, the rates will go up as soon as I try that!
I like your phrase ‘pounce like a hawk’! And I agree, it is amazing the rate’s going up at all - nevertheless that’s what the currency direct person told me last year - to 1.20, and it does seem sort of working out like that.
Next time you’re out hunting, here’s the site I use - it actually has a rate alert you can set, though you have to speak with them - marketing call. I think it’s actually a very good site and I have it adjacent to the transferwise window - I keep refreshing the wise window when its moving up, and hold it a bit when going down. Note though that transferwise are now charging higher fees on the next transaction if you cancel out of a transaction once you’ve clicked buy.
One has to be fleet and nimble to catch the top of the candle!
Fleet and nimble is one thing, but knowing when you have reached the top of the candle is another. 
Exactly and in my view life is too short to spend large amounts of time each day watching the currency markets but each to their own I am probably a bit jaundiced because of having a parent who spent large amounts of time each day watching the progress of their shares on the stock market
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I don’t spend much time each day, but I do look once or twice, even when I don’t have funds to transfer, just to get a feel of the way things are going.
I spend quite a lot of time at the computer anyway and always have a tab ready to open for a quick check. Takes just a few seconds, that’s all.
Yes, this is the site that I use - I do most of my transfers through Wise and I keep both the GPB/EUR website and a Wise tool ( Exchange Rate Alerts | Rate Notifications by Wise) open in separate tabs - allows one to be very nimble. I don’t use any currency trading companies as I find that their rates have never been as good as Wise or Revolut.
Midpoint FX get very good reports alongside the lijes of Wise. I’ve spoken to them and they seem very straight. You get the rate transparently and what they earn is separately quoted and defo much less than other providers bake into the rate less transparently.
They have an avios deal on this week as well with enhanced avios if you’re quick
Very frustrating to see stirling weakening again - will stirling ever shake off the chaos of Brexit???
Maybe if Boris gets dumped there will be temporary blip. If the UK government gets dumped, even better.
Unfortunately that is likely to be negative for the pound from historical views of economic stability under the Tories. (not necessarily correct views)
I watch the exchange rate several times a day when I have funds waiting. If there is an upward blip, however illogical, I am ready to pounce. 