How best to transfer American dollars for use in Glasgow during a year abroad?

If your ATM card is visa or mastercard, just use that. As mentioned, if you get any fees they'll be per-transaction, so don't get little amounts out. Other options are travellers cheques (expensive, and annoying), TT's (expensive and annoying) and cash (annoying).

When I was a grad student in the UK, I did 2 things: 1. withdrew from my American bank, but I made sure that I didn't get a big fee - it was only $1 per transaction. BoA was 10% of the transaction! Check with your American bank first. Shop around and find the bank with the lowest rates. (Mine was a small local bank.) And 2, once I got to school I found that my school had a deal with 1 or 2 UK banks and we had to use those as international students. Opening a bank in the UK (and Scotland, I assume) was a pain in the ass. I had to bring in a letter from school, copies of 2 utilities, the list goes on and on. But, I opened up an HSBC and it was a whole lot easier to pay my landlord, utilities, etc. But, NEW IDEA for my next abroad year - I opened up an American HSBC (online! no walk in!) and they do free and easy transfers to your HSBC in other countries. Problem solved! Before I had to wait days/weeks for transfers! (Like my American financial aid that showed up in London, deposited into HSBC, waited 4 weeks for deposit to go through.)

And, tell your friend, when I opened up my HSBC online it said "will you be transferring monies with our branches in other countries, if so please pick them from the drop down?" I put in UK and Armenia and it immediately linked into my existing UK account. Once I arrive in Armenia, I'll open up an account and (according to friends) it'll link up automatically.

http://www.xe.com/fx/how.htm should let you take care of this, with no fee.

From what I understand, an international wire transfer requires a trip to the consulate in Edinburgh for a stamp. That doesn't make any sense to me as long as one account supports sending a transfer and the other supports receiving it. I've sent money back and forth from the US and UK with several people in this fashion and there were no authorities involved. Is there some special set of restrictions for wiring money to yourself internationally? An alternative would be to write yourself a check, although it would take a while to clear but is reasonably cheap. I accept US checks to my regular Natwest account here in the UK all the time and the commission is about a flat £5 or £10 (I forget).

Bank of America allows withdrawals from Barclay's ATMs for only a (I think) 1% conversion fee -- no transaction fees at all. You can also use other banks' ATMs, but you will be charged $5 plus whatever the ATM charges you. In addition, Bank of America credit cards can be used internationally for only 1 or 2% conversion fees.

Yeah, there's only about two Barclays branches in all of Scotland, though.

Thanks everyone! I haven't spoken with my buddy in detail about his plans, but I'm positive now that he has many good options and can cease worrying on the subject.

that doesn't make any sense to me as long as one account supports sending a transfer and the other supports receiving it. I've sent money back and forth from the US and UK with several people in this fashion and there were no authorities involved. Is there some special set of restrictions for wiring money to yourself internationally? There is an international transfer fee of 20 quid per transaction. As far as I know there is no consulate requirement. I routinely transfer money from the UK to Canada. I avoid the fees by giving a trusted person in Canada signed checks and get them to fill in the amount and deposit them when I need to move money. Not so sure about the other direction.