Dollar Rate/ Holding Account/ US Dollar Account/ Paying Disney??!!

[meryll83]

Just seen this http://www.forecasts.org/pound.htm on the UK boards and it has me worried about paying for our wedding.

Does anyone know if Disney have a holding account or anything that we can pay into now to stop us from losing out if the rates really plummet?

Presumably once we contract in October they may let us do this, but how about now??

 

[orangetiggs]

we opened a us dollar account so we could make use of the good rates

I'm not sure you can pay them untill you contract

 

[meryll83]

we opened a us dollar account so we could make use of the good rates

I'm not sure you can pay them untill you contract

Who's your account with?
Would you recommend them?
Do they have a monthly fee?
And could we close whenever we transfer the money to Disney to avoid any monthly fee, or are you tied in to having the account for so long?

Sorry for all those questions!!

I've just discovered that Citibank have a US dollar current account with no monthly fee, and I already have an account with them, so I might open that now, should be painless!
You don't gain any interest on your funds, but it seems like it might be more beneficial to not gain interest but get the dollar conversion rate as it is now.....
It also says you get a US dollar cheque book (presumably we can pay our DFTW deposit this way?? - can anyone confirm?) and can make free debit card payments in the US with it, so that might also be handy when we're there for paying for our Citrico's meal and any other meals etc. we can't pre-pay for

 

[disprincessatheart]

I've just discovered that Citibank have a US dollar current account with no monthly fee, and I already have an account with them, so I might open that now, should be painless!
You don't gain any interest on your funds, but it seems like it might be more beneficial to not gain interest but get the dollar conversion rate as it is now.....
It also says you get a US dollar cheque book (presumably we can pay our DFTW deposit this way?? - can anyone confirm?) and can make free debit card payments in the US with it, so that might also be handy when we're there for paying for our Citrico's meal and any other meals etc. we can't pre-pay for

Not sure if you could use a check from this account, but they could take the payment with the debit card I'd imagine. I paid mine with credit card - got lots of Disney Visa points!

 

[Scrap_Vamp]

Thanks for posting - this will affect us too.

The Citibank one looks pretty good - just not sure how much of our savings we should transfer if we did it?

I'm also looking at Crown Currency because they offer great rates if you order in advance - just not sure if you also have to pay in advance or not?

Edited to add:

Have filled in the online forms and are being sent forms in the post to sign. Hopefully the rate won't go down too much more before we can book. I think we will transfer enough for the basic package, the balance of our payment to Randy, and accommodation costs

 

[orangetiggs]

watch crown currency as I dont think its regulated so if they went bust you would lose your money

 

[Scrap_Vamp]

Thanks for the warning re Crown Currency - I wasn't aware of that

 

[farjojo]

Hi

I have a dollar pre-paid mastercard that you can load up with £ and they convert it to $. Seems to be a pretty good rate too. The rate is only $1.87 now but it was $2 when I opened mine. It is called a Fairfx card and I got the idea for it through a UK Disney website. You would have to check if you could use this to pay Disney though as I don't have a clue.

Also, if you order it through the quidco site, you will get £7.50 cashback, there is no charge to have the card and no minimum load amount.
http://www.quidco.com/ Just join Quidco if you are not a member and go to the 'finance' section.


We have got one to start saving $ for our spending money, its nice to see it mounting up!

 

[orangetiggs]

i used the fairfx card to pay for part of our wedding as we got $2 to £

 

[farjojo]

i used the fairfx card to pay for part of our wedding as we got $2 to £

That forecast link that Meryll posted is a bit ominous...think I will have to sell a kidney to get more cash now if that is how the rate is going to drop!

 

[meryll83]

Just to let you girls know that I applied online late yesterday afternoon for the Citibank US dollar current account, and with me being an existing Citibank account holder, it's open already today. So I've now transferred some pennies across first thing this morning and we'll do the same with Simon later on - I'll let you all know what rate I end up getting, I had to transfer from a different bank so it may take a few days to go through.

I think in total we'll put in enough to cover the remaining monies owing to Randy and Stan (I know Randy took a card payment for my deposit, does Stan too??), enough for the basic Escape package, plus a bit more for any extras such as the MK photo shoot, floral upgrades etc, and enough to cover the estimated cost of our reception meal and maybe even a bit of spending money on there.
Does anyone know if Carolyn Allen's can take a card payment too, as that might be some more funds we'll put in there?

Hopefully now we won't lose out if the rate keeps a-going dooooooooooown