£50 notes not accepted?
 

read on tripadvisor forums that £50 banknotes aren't accepted or are looked upon with suspicion in the UK. Is this true? If it is, any banks in Heathrow that can swap notes denominations with me? (I have 4 hours from my flight touchdown to my coach departure). My bank in Singapore only had £50 denominations when I went to change with them... :mad:

Can't say that I've ever noticed it, as visitor or resident.

It is like say a $100 bill in the US (equivalent big bill in Singapoer?). Some places will ask you if you have something else smaller in nature, or if you go in a taxi, they may not have the change yet if just started shift (or something similiar cash business), but you should be just fine. I would not worry about it.

Thanks.

I've lived in London for 11 months, and I don't think I've seen a £50 note. However, I've also not seen any signs saying that they wouldn't accept them. I think OP should be fine, but it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to see if Travelex or someone could swap some them at LHR for smaller notes at no charge. (Travelex did this for me at PRG with CZK when I only had banknotes and needed coins for the bus ticket machine. Not sure if this is universal or just something they do there since no one shows up with coins and the machines don't take notes.)

Hi,

Some shops ( incl Greggs and a few Macdonald's have signs saying they do not take £50 notes).

I would think banks at LHR will give smaller notes ( £20 are fine in most shops)

Regards

TBS

They are quite rare and a fair few of those in circulation are fakes, so quite a few businesses don't take them - I used to work for a bakers that didn't. Even if people do take them they will probably look at them suspiciously, test for authenticity etc. I'd definitely try and swop them, they're hassle you don't need

Entirely agree with this, £50s are likely to be treated with suspicion by some shops (generally smaller stores) and you will probably run into some resistance changing them. Scotland and Northern Ireland have £100 notes which are even more difficult to get rid of because of their high value - never mind the complexity of spending a Scottish or (especially) Northern Irish banknote in England!

I was in a cab with a girl from the USA one Saturday night who tried to pay for the journey with a £50 and she was very surprised when the driver looked at her as if she had given him a disease :D. I suggested that she change them at the bank on Monday morning.

I've also see someone trying to pay for a large electrical item in £50's and they were all carefully checked visually & with a pen.

Would there be anywhere I could change them? I have about 4 hours in heathrow from touchdown at 0555 to my coach departure at 0955 to London Victoria, then about 45 minutes at Victoria coach stn to my departure coach onward. I'll try to spend some at the duty free liquor store, any other ideas! :D

Actually in Singapore no one flinches at a S$50 banknote, or indeed a S$100 banknote! Those big ticket item shops even take S$1000 banknotes without question. Oh the luxury. :rolleyes:

Yeah, I used a S$1000 note the other day.

I've used £50 notes without any problem in London. I've only had trouble with NI £20 notes.

Most ATMs don't dispense £50 notes (how many do?), and as that's the primary way that notes get into circulation these days then they aren't something that's all that common - for that reason alone they're inevitably going to be treated with some caution.

Of course there are those who always have a £50 note or two/several in their wallet, but perhaps that's because they spend them in places that wouldn't bat an eyelid.

I think it's a bit about context - I wouldn't expect any problems with using one to pay the bill in a restaurant, but nor would I expect most corner shops to be all that keen on the concept of being paid for a newspaper and a pint of milk with a £50 note that warmly (though regular customers at corner shops in more affluent parts of town might get different treatment). This is unlike say Switzerland or Italy where high value notes are used without a second thought in everyday transactions.

So, that said about context, I dare you probably wouldn't have a problem using a £50 note on arrival at Heathrow to buy something small like a coffee, because retailers there must surely be used to people arriving in the country with them.

Just to note that in terms of coach services from airports, National Express are quite flexible - I doubt it'd be a problem for you to get on an earlier coach from Heathrow to Victoria coach station, so long as there's a space on board (which is likely). You could then have a quick wander around - e.g. Buckingham Palace and St James' Park is not far away. There's a left luggage facility at the coach station (£2 for up to two hours, £3.50/£5.50 thereafter, depending upon weight).

I dunno, but you might even be able to get an earlier connecting coach departure from Victoria if there is one and there's a space on board, if you say that you've just arrived from Heathrow (your ticket will obviously say as much) - not sure about that though.

Part of the problem with £50 notes is that they are an older design which is treated with suspicion due to the possibility of fakes, etc.

The Bank of England is due to release a new, high tech £50 design later this year with new security features that should hopefully increase their acceptability.

Hi, thanks for this. A little out of topic, but my e ticket states I have a booking on the 0955 coach. So what do I do if I do get out of immigration quick? Go to central bus station and just show them my ticket (non amendable non refundable) , and ask if I can get onto an earlier bus? Any good place for me to have breakfast near victoria coach station? Im arriving on a Sunday. Many thanks!

This National Express FAQ suggests there's an amendment fee, but I don't think that's quite the full story - I'm sure they used to actively state that they'd do their best to accommodate travellers who arrived early (or late) off flights at airports.

You can but ask - I guess it might possibly make a difference if you have a cheapo NX 'funfare', but I really can't see a problem with you getting an earlier coach for the short hop into Victoria if there's space on board - should the ticket counter people be un-cooperative, then you could always just try politely asking a driver of a Victoria-bound coach (the coach departures and relevant bays are shown on departure screens at the bus station), I can't really see them saying no if there's a spare seat (which there will be - if the coach is already full and every passenger is heading to Victoria, then I can't see why the driver would even bother to call at Heathrow, unless there's a driver change or something).

On further consideration, trying to catch an earlier coach from Victoria for your onward journey would likely involve officially amending it (and thus paying the amendment fee) - and if the ticket is a funfare, then as this FAQ explains it's not really worthwhile trying to amend it as it'd normally be cheaper to simply buy a whole new ticket.

No idea about changing the things i'm afraid. You could try doing abit of shopping at Heathrow

I was recently given £400 in £50 notes when I sold my tatty old gold. I was a bit concerned that I might have trouble in shops but I used one at an hotel, one at Gatwick Airport in Fat Face, a couple when paying for a meal & then we actually paid £150 in our bank account using the deposit machine, no problems with any of the notes being accepted anywhere.

Would suggest that you don't use a £50 note for a bill under around £30 or £40 but why not pay them into your bank account here if you can, then withdraw from an ATM somewhere else?

I fondly remember a passenger flying from Gatwick to Ghana paying almost £8000 in excess baggage charges using £50 notes a few years ago!

£50 seem to be standard from the Bureau de Change at most UK airports when changing large amounts of foreign currency (£2000+) into Sterling.

You could spend your life in the UK and never know that £50 notes even exist - and I's sure there must be quite a few of the population who think this, having had no experience of them.

They only seem to get used for high value cash transactions - if you want to give the plumber £1,000 in cash for that new heating boiler and are going down to the bank (who do stock them) for it, that's about the only time I have used them.

The other time is our visitors from overseas, who turn up with £500 in British money as 10 x £50 notes, given to them by some know-nothing Bureau de Change. This has happened a couple of times, and I always think Oh No ! Off to the bank we go to change them.

Slightly OT: £8,000 in excess-baggage charges? EIGHT THOUSAND POUNDS?! Good God!

Yes - I think that of all the time I've lived in this country, I've only handled £50 notes probably twice. Once was to pay the builder and once was when someone paid me a bunch of money they owed me. As ATMs don't issue them (nor do most issue £5 notes either), most people don't handle them.

Following an instruction by the Bank of England (after some years of pleasantness got them nowhere), ATM operators have started to issue 2 x £5 notes with many transactions. My own bank seems to have changed over to this a couple of months ago. It depends on whether the machine can handle three types of note, not all can but many were capable, just weren't stacked with them previously.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12668840

I've heard this. I've never come across any that seems to provide them, though. Maybe I'm just using the wrong machines!

The NatWest ATM at Aldwych and Kingsway has them. I've seen it say that it's out of £5 notes before, so that's now I know. In Stratford-Upon-Avon, I encountered an ATM displaying a notice that it ONLY had £5 notes. (Out of others, not that it only ever had £5 notes.) Since I wanted something like £70 in cash, I decided to find a different machine.

I hate it when forex places only give you big notes! Fortunately, my favorite one is pretty good about having a variety of note sizes on hand and giving me a mix when I ask. I do wish that getting coins were more of a possibility. Took me a bit to figure out how I was going to pay the CZK32 bus fare using a machine that only took coins when I had nothing smaller than a CZK100 note. (Nice Travelex guy in PRG happily swapped it out for a mix of coins, but the delay did result in me waiting for the next bus. While waiting, I had to explain to some other tourists how they could get some coins. PRG's public transport ticket desk closes before the last flight, otherwise we could have bought from a person with notes.)

I used to use 50 pound notes all the time, and appreciated that a lot of cash would take up less space in one's suit pocket. However, times have changed, and I don't carry much cash with me these days. Furthermore, the big British notes don't fit in properly into my nice italian wallet (gift from the wife), making even the sentimentalist in me no longer a fan.

tb

Interestingly, in Switzerland, no one bats an eye at paying for a 1 CHF item with a 100 CHF note. The change is given politely and routinely with no major fuss.

you'll often find the Teller at a British bank asking if 50's are ok, enough said i think.

I used to be in the Scrap Gold trade a few years back and other than taking a few hundred quid in 50's as a curiosity i always made sure i paid out in 20s. That said i had no objection from using those 50s at all.

20s are used everyday so people are familiar with them. I can only assume that 50s were subject to high levels of fakes years back, couple that with the fact most people are not used to seeing them then you can understand why people become afraid of the risk that they will lose £50.

All that said i was given what i considered to be fakes BY BANKS every now and then, i.e. notes that were 2mil out in size which i'm sure would not pass Q.C! These days the fact that 50s are looked upon with such suspicion would likey make any forger stick to creating 20s i would argue!

However if someone told me 2/100 stores would likely reject them i'd stick to 20s everytime and that is what most Brits do.

Thank you. I shall bear that in mind should I ever feel the need to visit an ATM which provides £5 notes. :D

Citibank ATMs have 50 notes too, but there are only about 6 of them in the UK
I guess they need high denomination notes because they have a higher daily withdrawal limit.

I took cash out once to buy a car and it conveniently came in 50s

As an aside, if you're in London visit the Bank Of England museum, you can get a £50 or a £20 note on a coffee mug. I bought the 20 just because I liked the colour better.

just be careful now - in the not to distant future a 'Big Mac & Fries' will cost you 20 quid, as will a litre of petrol

For information: the old style money was so colourful

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/bankn...ing-1pound.htm

Thanks guys. Just to be safe I went to a local money changer, let him eat my spread (he didn't want to change my £50's for nothing:mad:) ) and changed £500 into £20s and £10s. :D

A Good move i think.

Stating the obvious but often forgotten: 50's like all top line notes, short of a few exceptions can rarely be given in change, hence why you don't see many of them circulating- From the bank to the bank whereas the humble five will probably not see a bank vault in it's lifetime! Well that might be pushing it but you get the point.

£500 quid? how long is that to last you? a few tanks of fuel and a Macdougalsteins? Not that that's a timeline but once again you get the point!

It is rather odd that €50 notes are widespread, while £50 notes are unusual, although only worth €56 or so nowadays and the gap will probably close. But so it is.

As an American (living in the UK), I get the impression that card is more universally used and accepted in the UK than in the eurozone. I rarely bother to check if a UK establishment takes card, but I tend to be really careful when on the continent. If more people are using cards for large transactions, you have less of a need for the larger notes.

At the beginning of the year I was offered £50 notes when withdrawing at a building society. When I commented this was a bit unusual the teller replied that they had stocked up with them before Christmas as they get requests apparently for use as presents but they still had a lot left in the branch. Refused my offer of £45 each to take them off their hands.

£50 notes are not commonly used in the UK, and virtually nobody will accept them. Not sure why we had them. When I worked as a checkout clerk, we would have to get a supervisor to look them over before we accepted them. I worked on the checkout for two and a half years as a student and I only ever saw two of them.

If you do get them, simply go into a Bank and get them changed for £20 notes and £10 notes. It's not big deal.

This thread explains why I always get a pack of £10 and £20 notes when I take 300£ or so out of an ATM in the UK. I always found that very strange, and annoying. (When I take out 300€ in most Euro-zone countries I always get at least some 50€ bills.)

But from the reactions here I understand that I should be happy about this... :D

Clydesdale Bank, the Bank of Scotland and the Royal Bank of Scotland both issue £100 notes - though good luck with spending them anywhere :)
You can see them at http://www.scotbanks.org.uk/banknote_denominations.php (along with an explanation of the legal position of Scottish banknotes, which is useful for settling any pub arguments.)

£50 notes are certainly not common, but it is not true that "virtually nobody will accept them". You might have trouble spending them at, say, a small independent convenience store, but I can't imagine any major chain store or supermarket not taking them for a larger-value purchase. It's true that they might arouse some curiosity/suspicion/supervisor calling, however!