PayPal, Mastercard, Visa or American express

Zainuluk

Hi All,
I am looking to purchase something from Germany (value is about £2000) via their website which works in euros. I initially picked PayPal as a payment method but on inspection I noticed that the product page on the website said one price and then the redirected PayPal page where I confirm payment had a £100 increase. I have not noticed this before when buying things in the UK.
My questions is which method of PayPal, Mastercard, Visa and America Express will result in the smallest charges relating to bank charges, conversion rates etc. I am assuming they will not be the same. Also, will PayPal connected to a debit card be different, and cheaper, than it being connected to a credit card.

Willing2Learn

If it were me, I would make the payment using the Visa or Mastercard, so that you get s75 and chargeback protection.  Obviously, I would be using a card with zero foreign transaction charges...


And welcome to the forum 

Highland76

There's nothing unusual about German retailers charging extra for PayPal payments - a lot of them of them do this, based on my experience. However does this retailer not let you pay by CC, either with no extra fees or lower charges than PayPal? If you do end up paying by PayPal DO NOT let PayPal do the currency conversion from EUR>GBP, let your bank/card issuer do this. Because even if your bank/card issuer charges for forex transactions, their charges will almost certainly be lower than PayPal's inflated exchange rate. 

Cisco001

Do you have credit card with free foreign exchange fee?

Zainuluk

Sorry @Nebulous2  you were right, I have now corrected.
Paypal £1 = €1.1009 
Master card £1 = €1.1451

Visa £1 = €1.1451

Highland76

Those Mastercard and Visa rates are wholesale rates and you will only get them if your card issuer does not charge any commission on forex transactions.

Nebulous2

You’re not comparing like with like. The visa / MasterCard rates must be the other way round with 1 Euro being £0.8710

eDicky

The interbank rate right now is. £1 = 1.1467

You will obtain that, or whatever it fluctuates to meanwhile (weekdays) by opening a Revolut account and using it to pay, with the virtual card available immediately.

You can obtain very close to that rate by using a credit or debit MasterCard/Visa that has no rate markup by the provider. If you don't have one you can open a Starling Bank account on your phone and use the debit card that will arrive in a few days.

As you can see, the PayPal exchange rate is atrocious, even using your regular credit or debit card with fees, which vary by issuer, would be better.