I agree with using the ATM once, and using cash. It is much cheaper that way. If you find out you need more you can always do the same again.
I doubt you could get an account here as a visitor, or even a card in your name on your bf's account as a visitor. Even after we'd been married nearly five years before I moved here, it still took a bit, and proof that I actually lived here, to be added to hubby's account at RBS. He'd had an account elsewhere that had stayed open while he was in the States, and they wouldn't even consider adding me, even with proof that I lived here. He switched to RBS and it still took a bit.
I do find it annoying to nearly beg to use a Visa debit card only to be told they have no way to swipe it, when you can clearly see the swipe slot on their card reader. My parents have both put money into our US bank account from time to time over the few years we have been here, as Christmas or other gifts, and ASDA is the only place I have been able to successfully get them to swipe, without an argument, flat refusal or looking at me as though I suddenly sprouted a second nose. I challenged a woman at a Spar once, pointing out the swipe feature on the card reader and she told me they weren't allowed to use it. I politely explained that I was aware she was telling a fib and never went back in there again. Prior to that I'd been in there one or two times a week.
