UK brides or anyone with exchange rate knowledge - best way to pay Disney?

[tinkandonaldfans]

Ok, we have saved around 60% of our total costs and we are now starting to wonder about paying the final balance, deposits etc.

The exchange rate for dollars has been particularly low and although its rising we want to ensure we use the best way to get a good rate. Thankfully we have time on our hands but just want to get our heads round it!

How did you pay for your wedding? was there a company you used?

My dad lives in America and wondering whether to use him

Any thoughts would be appreciated

 

[lurkyloo]

You guys are lucky in that, even with the current exchange rate, you still get 50% more buying power in the US than we do!

Usually the best way to get a good exchange rate on foreign transactions no matter where you live is to pay by credit card rather than traveler's cheque or wire transfer or whatever. However, more and more card companies are tacking on 1%-3% in transaction fees.

I recently had to research UK credit cards for a book I'm editing, and it looks like the Post Office and Nationwide are the only UK credit card issuers that don't charge foreign-transaction fees—it might be worth signing up if you don't already have one of these.

 

[brer rabbit 28]

Unfortunately I believe Nationwide will be charging transaction fees as of September.

I use a currency card with Fairfx. They constantly give one of the best exchange rates going and you just load money onto it online whenever you want.

I got one for last trip and we used it for booking tickets in the US before we went - saved us quite a bit.

 

[Sarah84]

I plan to load money onto my fairfx card when I have enough (we only have about 1/5 of the money so far, if the rate is good enough i'll start doing it when we have about 1/3) and im happy enough with the rate, then use this to pay.

 

[tinkerbell 766]

I second the Fairfx card. I have used it for a number of years for trips to USA and it has always worked perfectly well for me. I can load the card gradually as I can afford it and load more on when rates are favourable. Their exchange rates are always better than the post office, M&S etc and I have always had good service from them. I have always paid my DVC annual dues with it and I paid the deposit for my VR with it. I will also pay the balance with it when the time comes. On trips to the US, it can be used to charge things (like a credit card) or to withdraw cash.
Here is a link to their website

http://www.fairfx.com/

 

[lurkyloo]

Unfortunately I believe Nationwide will be charging transaction fees as of September.

Thanks for the heads up! It got me to do some new research, and I found that the Santander Zero Credit Card and Halifax Clarity MasterCard also don't charge foreign exchange fees. It appears that while FairFX doesn't charge a foreign exchange fee, there is a 1.5% transaction fee—but maybe that's balanced out by a better exchange rate plus the lack of load fee... and the knowledge that you won't have a big bill waiting for you when you get home!

 

[gemmybear83]

Another one here who uses Fairfx, I paid my deposit using it already.

Carrie - there are no transaction fees on the $ card, only a small ATM fee.

 

[brer rabbit 28]

Yes, the ATM fee is only small.

I was truly upset about Nationwide when I found out! I use them for my main account and have always been so happy that they ddin't charge a fee for use in America. oh well, I suppose all good things come to an end lol.

Fairfx is so easy to use. Both Chris and I have a back up 2nd card with them, so if the unthinkable happened and we lost one, we can just transfer all the cash from the missing one onto the spare card.

 

[torsie24]

We are paying all of our payments with a FairFx card too!

LOVE FairFx!

 

[tinkandonaldfans]

thanks everyone! will look into fairfx!

 

[Scrap_Vamp]

The option we took was to open a US dollar account with Citi Bank. They have very good exchange rates, and we were able to transfer money when there was a good rate once we had it saved - we were in the position of having our money saved when the rate started to drop from $2/£ and ended up transferring at $1.8/£ once the account was opened.

As it is a dollar account we pay no fees when using the debit card in the US, and it is free to withdraw moeny from CitiBank group ATMs. We were able to pay the balance on this, and we also got a cheque book which we used to pay our vendors, rather than having to carry around loads of cash.

We're still using it this year, as CitiBank have always bettered all the other rates. Currently we are about to transfer the cost of renewing our annual passes, and the rate we should get is just under $1.6/£.

I hope that is useful to you as well