paying deposit in euros - avoiding hefty bank charges

[notanickname]

we need to pay our holiday villa deposit in euros but our bank will charge £25 for bank transfer. seems really steep. I don't think our villa owners could take credit cards.
has anyone else found a way round this?

If we pay £25 this time and another £25 for the balance that's a whopping £50 for nothing!

Have you looked at www.hifx.co.uk/? it might not work due to the amounts involved but might be worth looking at.

Hi there

We have a property in France and we use Money Bookers all the time to transfer funds. It is the most cost effective method we have found. If I remember rightly, it costs about £3.50 per transaction

Hope that helps

How much are you talking about? If it is from a UK account to an account in the EU then a euro tranfer should be free.

Hi, it's only a couple of hundred pounds but our bank - first direct - would charge £25!! seems outrageous to me. But thanks for all of those suggestions - I'll look into them all! Thanks.

I have never found transfers from any UK banks to a french euro account to be free - there is always a charge. And to make matters worse, you pay the fee to your UK bank to make the transfer and then some French banks charge* to accept the funds, so you are charged twice for one transfer! If you are only transfering a small amount, the 2 charges can sometimes be half the amount of the sum you are transfering!

Crazy

If your villa owners accept Paypal it would be possible to pay using your UK credit card and they would receive it in euros.

Another option is a Euro denomination banker's draft which should cost a lot less than a direct transfer.

MM