Using a Canadian Bank Debit card in England

I am about to leave for a 3 month trip to London.

When trying to book (for example) a room/studio, they say they charge extra for using a Credit Card -- no charge for Cash or Debit card.

So .. since this 'charge' on my CC could be significant, I was wondering if my CIBC debit card will work in the UK? It would be so convenient if it did, since that means I could avoid using cash a lot of the time.

NOW: Please, don't bother answering me about ATM cards, I am not talking about withdrawing cash (with a daily limit) .. I mean, do shops use Debit cards as much at here in Canada, and if they do, will my CIBC card work there?

Is there an alternative to paying my rent with a wad of cash? Is it worth opening a UK bank account for the three months I will be there? Are bank fees expensive?

Thanks.

I am hoping someone else can give you more specific information but from my experience travelling to Great Britain is that they use cash as much as Canadians use debit cards. I think it is like that in most of europe. I live in Germany and we use cash over 90% of the time. Plus most shops take cash only. The supermarkets will take debit.

I have a Canadian CIBC debit/visa card. It is relatively new (in the last 6 months) as the technology has changed. It is a debit card (plus pin number) with a visa symbol on it so that while the machine reads it as a visa it comes out of my debit account.

My German husband could not believe that Canadians will buy a Tim Hortons coffee in the drivethru with a debt card.

Debit card use in UK is surging:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11901953

so the only thing you need to confirm is if your debit card will work with UK mercahnts equipment.

Only your bank could tell you this. CIBC says that your debit card is accepted "worldwide" but appears to the mercant as a Visa process, but is a regular debit to you. Probably not what you want.

However it your CIBC is the Advantage card, and is branded as "Visa Debit", it should be compatible with European/UK debit network.

Probably not much help, but I spent a couple years in Europe/UK and used a TD Debit Card, TD Visa, and an American debit card. I rarely had problems with the American card, as it was swipe, and never had any problems whenever I wanted to use the TD Debit, as it had a chip.

I believe that there should not be a problem using it if you have the Visa-Debit card. Watch out though - you do get slammed with fees so make sure you read all of the conditions.

btw - I'd look into the condition where it says you have to use a visa-debit card and you will get slammed for using your credit card. Quite frankly, I think that's kind of sketchy and never seen that condition before...but, I guess they want the money up front? why not just do a money transfer through paypal? It's fairly cheap to do.