How to send Xmas money to Canada from the UK, safely?

fern37

I have a dear friend who is in her 90s so doesn't have online banking. She wants to send £100 as a Xmas gift to family in Canada. How do we do it safely and easily? Possible without asking for the other person's banking details so it can be a surprise.
Money Order?
Money Transfer?
Other method?
Best company to use? Is the Post office an option?

Looking for personal experience. Thank you in advance.

Emmia

Wise would be my choice.


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

SkylineExplorer

A money order might be a good option
it's secure and doesn’t require the recipient’s banking details. The Post Office offers international money orders, which could work well for sending to Canada.
Alternatively, companies like Western Union or PayPal (if someone helps set it up for her) are also easy to use.

Hope this is helpfull

Brie

You could try a foreign exchange transfer but Canada is tricky as they don't use IBANs like most countries do.  So money orders work well or going via Western Union which seems to do the whole North American stuff.  

My problem with doing Wise or similar is that you often need to organise things in the branch in Canada.  How? No idea, even when I've actually been there.  I've never managed to make it work.  

Just be 100% sure of the recipients name(s) as that can muck you up whatever country you are sending to.

Flugelhorn

Could buy a gift card on Amazon (dot) Ca and print and post it - not the same as cash but almost ..

Tommo2448

Worth noting that postal services to Canada are currently suspended due to a strike, so snailmail options now limited, sadly.  See https://www.royalmail.com/international-incident-bulletin and scroll down to Canada section, the current advice from RM is...

"Canada Post has been on strike since the morning of Friday, 15th November. The duration of the industrial action is unknown at this stage. Items already in the network will experience significant delays.   

All services to Canada are suspended from 19.00 Wednesday, 27th November until further notice.  

Canada Post has informed us items sent prior to the service suspension will be held by them until the end of strike action and will be delivered (first in, first out approach) once operations resume"

fern37

Thank you everyone. I discussed it with her and she has decided not to send any money. She has never sent money before so I have no idea why she decided to this year but she is just going to post a card as she usually does.