Buying from Amazon Canada

r2015

I want to buy something from Amazon Canada, should I pay in £s or Canadian dollars?

Ebe_Scrooge

It depends. Ultimately you'll be paying in dollars, the question is more how you exchange it.


You may be limited by which credit card is linked to your Amazon account. Having said that, most of the mainstream cards are actually not too bad on their exchange rates. And depending on the amount you're going to be spending, it may not make a huge difference which card you use.


Just be aware that there may be import duty to pay on what you buy ( depending on what it is ), so you need to factor that in. Quite often, this will negate any price benefit from buying abroad.

dj1471

It will depend on how much your card issuer charges you for non-sterling transactions and how much Amazon are loading their exchange rate by. In general it's usually better to pay in the local currency rather than GBP.

Amazon do make it tricky to choose which currency your card is billed in...

I don't know about Amazon Canada but Amazon US have a Global Shipping Program which offers inexpensive shipping and pre-payment of all applicable VAT and duty, worth investigating if Amazon Canada do the same (or if your item is available from the US site if not).

eDicky

To avoid all fees and get the best exchange rate, pay in CAD using one of the suitable cards for travel, which can be a prepaid such as Monzo or Revolut:

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/travel-credit-cards