Don't rely on being able to withdraw the money. We have a bank guarantee from HSBC. Despite having worked for them in fairly senior positions for many years before doing this trip and having several times the value of the bond deposited in various accounts with them they have ringfenced these funds and we can't touch them. I suspect where people have been able to this may be down to incompetence on the bank's part - especially if they have removed the funds fairly quickly. Don't rely on being able to move funds 3 months on. You should check this with the bank before you go down that route.

Banks issue guarantees all the time but 99% + will be in a commercial context which is why your average representative in a retail branch/customer service centre won't have a clue. Ask the person you are dealing with to find you a contact within the "Guarantees Department". Or failing that ask to speak to someone who deals with business banking.

I went to HSBC in London today, asked about a guarantee for a carnet and they issued me with this form to fill out. However I'm in a very similar situation to what Ted described in a previous post where I have enough money now to apply for the guarantee but will gradually (maybe rapidly!) be spending money after I have set off. I won't actually need to use the carnet until about Jan/Feb 13 although I leave in about a month. If HSBC ringfence that cash until I send the carnet back to the RAC then I don't see what the advantage is in getting a bank guarantee over just giving the RAC the money directly?

I think the difference will be you won't earn interest on a deposit with the RAC whereas you will with a bank (though probably not much nowadays). Still our guarantee was for 28K for three years so interest came to around 2K and therefore worth going the bank route.

There also used to be a limit (10K?) on the size of deposit the RAC would accept if I remember correctly so at the time it wasn't an option for us. May no longer be an issue or you may be within the limit.

That makes sense, thanks for that. In the mean time I did fire off a short email to the HSBC trade client services people (who seem to be the ones who normally deal with bank gaurantees?) and they pretty much confirmed what you said in your previous post:

"The funds will probably have to stay in your account while the guarantee is in place but your branch will be able to confirm this. The charge for a guarantee would normally be 2.2% of the value of the guarantee per annum but again your branch will be able to advise you accordingly."

That statement combined with your experiences and the fact my branch has no idea about bank guarantees (for reasons you stated in post 16) is enough for me to know not to bother. I'm under 10k so will probably go down the route of making a deposit to the RAC. How I will get those funds I'll worry about nearer the time! (I'd imagine a combination borrowing off interest free credit cards, borrowing off family members and whatever I can stump up with from my own account at the time will be the answer!)

Cheers

Basically i have recently traveld to pakistan from UK and i didnt take a Carnet, but the problem starts from Turkey to Iran border, you need a carnet for iran, so i spent 13 hours on iran border i met lots of agents selling me carnets on the border for 1000euros, i finally haggled one agent down to 650euros and i went straight thru trouble free, Carnet is very important otherwise you will have the world of trouble which will ruin your mood to continue the trip, now theirs a way around it, if anyone can get a hold of hungarian or polish carnets dummys ofcourse you got your self a ticket to heaven, i met three european guys at the border of iran they had ''FAKE'' Carnets and they swimmed thru with no hassle unfortunatly i lost their contact numbers as i lost my phones in pakistan, wounder.... hope this helps....

Carnet Bank Guarantee for Carnet - We used First Direct
 

We did Africa for 1 year in a 4x4 (Land Rover) and used a Bank Guarentee from First Direct.

RAC have a lot of experience of dealing with the department in FD that issues Bank Guarentees for RAC Carnet and the bank seemed to know all about it and was very easy to set up. Probably helped that we had been with FD for a few years but we were not what I call land standing customers.

Cost for the year to cover £5250 valuation of the car including 150% multiple for our trip was paid in 4x quarterly payments of £70 = £280 it total. Obviously you have to add on the costs for getting the Carnet from RAC but that was that.

I hear paul Gowan has moved on from RAC (true?) so unless they get someone of Paul's calibre on the job, things will be slower. He is (was) a legend and helped us a lot back end of 2009 / early 2010.

HTH

Nick

Definately Paul was a legend in his own right.

We always use the bank to place the bond for our carnet and last time it only cost us £75 plus the cost of the document. We are with Lloyds TSB and once we had explained everything in triplicate to our branch manager and put him in touch with the banks securities office there was no more problems. It is certainly the cheapest way to go.

Margaret