Paying Euros to Dutch bank from UK bank???

PhylPho

Advice really would be appreciated.

Stupidly (as it now seems) we have booked a holiday with a major Netherlands-based accommodation provider in June. The company is well respected, has been going for many years, and provides websites in Dutch, English, German and Spanish.

Small-time, it isn't.

Having made our Harwich -- Hook of Holland car ferry arrangements this morning, we went online earlier this afternoon to book the Netherlands accommodation. Online booking was very straightforward and we expected to have to pay a deposit via credit or debit card.

Instead, we were told no deposit was necessary today and that an email invoice would be sent to us. It has. It confirms the booking and asks us to pay 50% of the cost in Euros to the company's Dutch bank account by the end of February and then the balance by the end of April.

All well and good, but surely we're now going to incur considerable additional expense on this bank transfer proposal -- not only the cost of currency exchange, but the interbank transaction itself?

I know it's our fault for simply assuming that a major international operator would offer an online credit or debit card payment facility as standard, but even so!

We have emailed to find out if they are part of Moneybookers or if they are signed up to PayPal (those two are the only two we can think of which facilitate money transfers at reasonable cost.) We haven't heard back yet.

Any other ideas / suggestions would be most welcome.

dzug1

Well you are going to incur currency exchange costs anyway, so it's just the cost of the transfer that's involved.

You could minimise that by making the whole payment now (it tends to be a flat rate).

I think Tesco stores with a BdeC offer a cheap transfer service - £3 I believe.

SaveTheEuro

Might it be worth phoning them and saying you are happy to pay over the phone using credit/debit card? It's hard for anyone to say no when someone is desperately trying to give them money! And maybe ask them to email you a receipt.

eslick

http://www.tesco.com/moneytransfer

paypal add think its 6% to the cost, they say it doesnt cost you anything but those drawing the cash are charged.