31/05/2014 Your Money

What is essential is travel insurance. We will talk to travel

expert to see how you best plan your trip.

your weekly guide to making the most of your cash, here every weekend on

BBC News, available all week on the BBC iPlayer.

Destination ` Brazil. If you're off there for the World Cup, we've got

some tips on planning your journey and protecting your cash.

Luck of the draw. From this weekend, we can invest more in premium bonds,

if we want to. But what are the chances our number will come up in

the big draw? And pennies from heaven ` the Church

of England is to offer financial information to anyone who needs to

borrow money. The head of Britain's credit unions tells us why that

could be a big boost for them. If you're off to Brazil for the

World Cup, and here's hoping it won't be a short trip. You've

probably made most of your travel plans by now. But should you pack

some insurance? The Foreign Office thinks you should. Its travel advice

pages say all tourists should have comprehensive travel insurance. Lots

of other helpful tips on the Foreign Office website. UK passport holders

do not need a visa to go to Brazil. But your passport has to be valid

for six months, and you may be asked to show your return ticket before

Some other tips, tell your credit card company you are going before

you settle. You will need your passport to change money at the

bank, of course, and it warns that there is lots of cream, ridiculously

in big cities. `` crime. We have with as the travel expert from

Gocompare.com today. Let us talk about some of the travel issues. The

point the foreign office was making at the top of the website is how big

Brazil is. That is probably more important than we might think. Yes,

it is 65 times the size of England, which is pretty big. Venues England

are playing at our spread across the country. The recommendation is

people fly between the venues that have distances between them. There

are other transport routes, significant bus network. But the

roads are not brilliant and accidents are regular occurrences.

And there is a note that strikes can happen out of nowhere, which

disrupts even the best of plans. Yes, there is a lot of advice about

making plans in advance, and it will take longer than people expect. They

always say to leave a lot of time and make sure you get the keeping

yourself safe. If you are disrupted, does travel insurance

cover that, does it cover the cost of replacement flight or a refund if

there is a strike? It depends on your policy. Typically, travel

insurance purchased in the UK will cover them to and from the UK, so

the journey there and back. Anti`Dash internal flights are not

always covered. `` internal flights are not always covered. It is worth

phoning your provider to ask if you can add this to your policy. There

are strict rules are some things in Brazil, for example you should have

identification on new. Yes, keep your passport somewhere safe, but

take a photocopy with you. Keep your passport in a safe or safety deposit

box. Also keep for two identification on you at all times.

`` photographic identification on you, such as a driving licence.

Also, does being under the influence of alcohol affect your insurance if

something goes wrong? It can do. The real thing is to be sensible. And

not put yourself in a situation with it is risky. A lot of policies have

wording on whether you are under the influence of alcohol, so read the

documents and be aware of what your particular insurer says. There are

different levels of wording, of tolerance of the policies, but they

do not want to be a spoilsport and stop you enjoying your trip to the

World Cup. But they will not pay out if people are irresponsible. Thank

you very much for joining us. We know that many of you bought

shares... One quarter of TSB is being put on the market. Small

investors will be offered one free share for every 20 we buy. That is

up to a value of ?2000. One catch is you have to keep the shares for one

year. More people are getting into debt cause of government mistakes

over tax credits. They are payments to parents or working people who are

not well off, but if the government pays too much up front, it has to be

paid back later. Citizens Advice say that some people have had to pay

back ?7,000. The taxman says if your income or circumstances change, you

must tell them to avoid future mistakes.

Do you need help with your finances? How about some divine

intervention? The Church of England is to offer financial information

inside church buildings. It does not look like moneylenders are going to

be let into the temple themselves. The people who need to borrow cash

will be advised to use credit unions instead of payday lenders. Mark

Lyonette is the chief executive of the trade body for credit unions. He

also sits on the Archbishop of Canterbury's tax crew for

responsible lending. This is a pilot programme. How was it going to work?

Yellow macro I think it is going to do three things. I think it is going

to help train local church people to help promote the local credit union.

I think some of those church people are probably also going to volunteer

their expertise. They will help support the local credit union in

whatever way is needed. And of course, hopefully many of those

people will help the credit union `` join the credit union.

What we should not forget is when someone like the Archbishop of

Canterbury, who has a financial services background, when he makes a

statement about the damage that payday lending is doing, and he

supports the credit union sector, then actually many people, whether

they are members of the Church of England, whether they are practising

Christians, the people of other faith or no faith, people do listen

and they get some trust to what he is saying. So this is not dependent

on the number of people who go to church every Sunday, this is a

service for all comers? Many of those people who go to the Church of

England or Scotland or the Methodist Church will themselves be helping

here. But I think the message goes beyond that. When someone like the

Archbishop of Canterbury comes out and makes the statement he has, I

think there is a level of trust, and that reaches well beyond the people

on Sundays. But as you know, some of the Church of England's investment

money has gone into funds which lent money to the payday lenders, and as

far as we know some of those arrangements exist. Wouldn't it be a

better signal if the Church of England cut all its ties to money

right there and then? As I understand it, and I am some way

away from this, the Church of England is doing its best to get out

of that investment as soon as it can without losing a huge amount of

money. You expect this will lead to more business for you. How do people

find there nearest credit union? The best way to find it is to go online,

if you have access to the Internet, find your credit union .co.uk,

taping your postcode `` type in your postcode. It will hopefully bring up

several credit unions you could join. Thank you very much for

joining us. Premium Bond is, you know what they

are, saving money for the future. You do not earn interest, but you

are put into a monthly prize draw. The limit to what you can invest is

about to go up to ?40,000. What are the chances of your numbers coming

up? It is nearly 60 years since Ella

tonic random number indicators started picking the month's

prize`winning Premium Bond 's. A third of us have Premium Bond 's and

we seem to like the idea of gambling interests on our savings on a prize

draw. Others look for a certain return. Once upon a time, you got a

letter if you won the Premium Bond 's. Now, less excitingly, we check

numbers online. Even less excitingly, the prize has been

reduced from 1.5% to 1.3%. That means that if you put ?100 into

premium Bonds, your annual return on average is ?1 30. So the big

question is, should you buy more premium Bonds, just because you can?

Some see them as another tax`free allowance, and others see it as a

bit of a lottery. If you have got the money, and probably if you are

higher rate taxpayer, and if you do not rely absolutely one income from

your investments, it is worth taking advantage of the increase in the

allowance. The chances of winning regulates the flow of deposits, so

we do things stand now? `` where do things stand now? There are 46

billion in circulation, which is a staggering number of them. Let us

think about the odds of you own the minimum number, ?100 worth. The odds

of you winning are under half a billion to one. That is similar to

both of us picking one person at random in the US or Japan and both

picking the same person. Are there better odds to win a better price?

`` any prize? Yes, they gave out 1.8 million prizes in May, and your rod

of winning one of those is about 25,000 to one. If you are still

dreaming of becoming a millionaire, the odds don't matter, which is just

as well. If you put your savings into cash Isa and buy a lottery

ticket every month, have better odds of becoming a millionaire. You can

visit the National savings website. There is the address.

That is all for this week. Keep up to date with what ever we put on the

website. The address on screen. You can follow us on Twitter also.

More next week, hope to see you then.

This is BBC News, the headlines: Britain's three main party leaders

condemned the death sentence given to a woman in Sudan for marrying a

Christian. The long`awaited tram service in Edinburgh opens to the

public.