Heathrow ATMs--excess charges?
 

I was recently Poundless at LHR after arrival from the Continent. Looked for an ATM and picked out one by an Amex office (apparently Amex related). But, I think I got sorta ripped off because there was a, IIRC, a 5.5% surcharge added on.

Had I known that I could pay for my Tube ticket in London with a credit card I would have just annulled the transaction and gone into town--but, it had been a very long time since I was in the UK and just didn't know.

So, are some or all of the ATMs at LHR charging excess "commissions?"

I believe I did better in London itself, especially when out of the totally tourist areas--but, what do FTers who know something about London ATM (especially at LHR) use for converting dollars to pounds say?

I have never heard of a normal ATM charging a commission although some charge a fixed fee.

ATMs attached to a retail bank do not, to my knowledge, charge fees (never seen one that does). Other ATMs sometimes do but they tell you before the transaction. Typically, there will be a screen that says something like:"You will be charged £3.50* for this transaction. Do you want to proceed?" and ask you to press Yes or No. I think that this is a legal requirement for them to give you notice of the fee although I am not 100% sure.

The only machine I can think of that charge commission are change machines sometimes encountered at airports. Could it be one of these that you used?

*: amount is made up. As I avoid these machines, I have not memorised what the typical fee tends to be.

The OP doesn't tell us the currency of his card, though it seems it may have been a USD card. It may be that if it was a non-£ card, there's a currency exchange fee involved.

In any case, as NickB points out, bank ATMs in the UK don't charge fees, unlike ATMs I have used in the US for example. Whether the OP's bank charges an ATM fee and/or currency exchange fee is a separate matter.

The exception to the above comment is 'convenience' ATMs, the kind operated in 24-hour grocery stores and (I imagine) bars and clubs. AFAIK, there aren't any of those at LHR.

Thanks for the info. By the way, yes, I was using a USD based card.

In my experience some airport ATMs (IIRC the ones associated with Amex and Thomas Cook, including at LHR, ZRH and GVA) give customers two options when withdrawing money:

Option 1 is to withdraw at your own bank's exchange rate plus the fee for using an ATM outside the Euro area in my case. Option 2 is to withdraw at a rate suggested by the ATM owning bank (plus a fee?).

Maybe in this case choosing option 2 included some hideously disadvantageous exchange rate?