For a holiday anyway..

I've got a Bank of America checking account and a Barclays account in England - where I will be for the next month on holiday.

Does anybody have any advice on the best, cheapest and relatively easiest way of transferring a couple of thousand pounds ($3k) spending money back to my Barclays account in England?

Thanks!

xe.com

Second that - that's how we did it last month - give it 5 days or so to go through depending on how you want to send the money to them and have it delivered to your UK account - maybe a couple of days extra if you haven't set up an account with them before.

Bank of America charge $45 to transfer money to any UK account, it takes anything from 2 - 4 days

Just did this yesterday to a UK account

Not cheap but hopefully reliable

I'll third this - however it takes a few days to setup in the first place, so make sure you get it going quickly. Also if you have someone you can trust you can just send a bank draft instead of a wire - if they pay that in for you (or you pay it in when you get there) it will save on the wire fee that is charged in the UK.

xoom.com was quick to set up and I had my money in 5 days. You can only transfer $2999 every 30 days - I think you can increase it after the first transaction. Was pleased with the exchange rate, too.

Fourth vote for xe.com

With a bit more time you could have ordered a bankers draft from them which would cut out the charges...

For a few thousand you could just convert it in the US, carry the cash with you and deposit some or all of it when you get to the UK.

With BofA you can order foreign currency online that will be delivered to your local branch in 2 or 3 business days - last time I did this I am pretty sure that there was no charge for this service and the exchange rate was quite reasonable. There are also a few BofA branches in major cities that have a foreign exchange desk where you can buy foreign currency on the spot. There is one in San Francisco and I assume that there must be one in LA also so you could try that.