Advice on Sending Money to the US

Cloth_of_Gold

Apologies if this is not the correct part of the forum to post this but I want to send some money to an organisation in the US and the choices are PayPal, debit/credit card (not using PayPal) or bank transfer. For a bank transfer it says they use Stripe but I've no idea what it is.

What would be the cheapest way for me to do this please?

ColdIron

You might look at Wise. Reputable and cheap

https://wise.com/gb/send-money

grumbler

MSE: Sending Money Abroad

Cloth_of_Gold

Thanks @ColdIron and @grumbler

Ayr_Rage

WISE is probably the best 

Olinda99

I use Wise - download the app

sausage_time

Hi @Cloth_of_Gold if one of your debit or credit cards already has 0% FX loading that could be an easy and cheap way to pay in US$.

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

May offer some more protection too.

Neil49

My wife has just made a donation to a charity run in the US (for someone who is taking part).

She simply entered our Monzo card details into the website for $xx and it went through in seconds with no conversion charges.

Just find a similar card, such as Starling, Chase etc that don't charge for transactions in a foreign currency. 

Cloth_of_Gold

sausage_time said:

Hi @Cloth_of_Gold if one of your debit or credit cards already has 0% FX loading that could be an easy and cheap way to pay in US$.

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

May offer some more protection too.

What is 0% FX loading and how would I know if one of my cards has it?

Neil49 said:

My wife has just made a donation to a charity run in the US (for someone who is taking part).

She simply entered our Monzo card details into the website for $xx and it went through in seconds with no conversion charges.

Just find a similar card, such as Starling, Chase etc that don't charge for transactions in a foreign currency. 

Thanks but I don't want to get another card for something that will be a one-off. I don't mind paying a transaction fee as long as it is fairly low. I will probably use Wise as that seems to be the consensus on here.

sausage_time

FX is short for Forex which in turn is short for Foreign Exchange.  See the link above for cards with low FX rates.  A bog standard card will likely charge around 3% for goods or services.  For one off that may be ok for you?

ColdIron

Cloth_of_Gold said:

sausage_time said:

Hi @Cloth_of_Gold if one of your debit or credit cards already has 0% FX loading that could be an easy and cheap way to pay in US$.

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

May offer some more protection too.

What is 0% FX loading and how would I know if one of my cards has it?

Neil49 said:

My wife has just made a donation to a charity run in the US (for someone who is taking part).

She simply entered our Monzo card details into the website for $xx and it went through in seconds with no conversion charges.

Just find a similar card, such as Starling, Chase etc that don't charge for transactions in a foreign currency. 

Thanks but I don't want to get another card for something that will be a one-off. I don't mind paying a transaction fee as long as it is fairly low. I will probably use Wise as that seems to be the consensus on here.

Notwithstanding my recommendation of Wise, a 0% FX card (Starling, Chase, First Direct etc) would actually be the cheapest but as you say, no point in getting one for a one off

Some credit cards have 0% fees, it might be worth checking yours