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Martin Lewis has shared some helpful tips if you are booking a holiday abroad. He shared several pieces of advice on his BBC podcast about how to keep your costs down, including the best travel cards to avoid bank fees and when to take out foreign currency.

One person wrote in with a question about booking your accommodation ahead of your trip, such as through Booking.com, and whether you should pay in pounds or in the local currency. Mr Lewis' general guidance was to pay in the foreign currency if you are paying with a specialist travel card.

He explained: "The reason is your card is then doing the conversion, and that is at a known rate. Many times if you are paying on a foreign website, if you say, I'll pay in pounds, it means they are doing the currency conversion for you and the rates you get are generally - I don't know specifically for Booking.com - far worse that you would get converting yourself."

He shared a tip to make sure you are getting the best exchange rate when doing the booking, looking at the example of paying for something in euros. Mr Lewis said: "Take that amount that you're being asked to pay in euros, find what the spot rate is on the day.

"Just put in 'spot rate euros', you don't want the holiday rate, you want the spot rate. Remember that phrase. Then do the conversion yourself.

"That is roughly the rate you will get on a specialist card, and compare that. Generally you will find you are getting a better rate with your card doing the conversion, because it's a near perfect rate."

Another Martin Lewis fan wrote in with a question about getting cash out for their trip to Bruges in Belgium for a week. Their query was if they should get their cash out for their trip in the UK or while they were abroad.

Mr Lewis said in response: "The safest place to get yourself a decent rate of cash if you actually want cash, is a Bureau de Change comparison site here before you go. But if you have a specialist overseas card, then it is getting it out at a cash machine once you have arrived in Bruges, assuming that cash machine doesn't have a big ATM charge."

However, Mr Lewis also said that it may be still be worth getting the cash out locally if there is only a small charge to pay. He said: "Even if it does have an ATM charge, let's say of €2 or €3 euros, and you're needing to get out €600 or €700, that's still probably cheaper, because €2 on €600 or €700 is not big. If it's €2 on €50, that's a big charge. €2 on €600 is effectively depreciated across the whole value, so it works."