help with paying my Spanish marina bill please!

pcatterall said:
No need to part with any dosh though its just some money transfer advice I need!

last time I paid I recal that there were some hefty charges made.

Whats the best way to pay the bill please?
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Not in £ that's for sure. You'll want to exchange your money yourself (see moneysavingexpert for more tips on that) and then load that onto a spanish credit card (depending on what their preferred payment method is).
 
Another plus 1 for Revolut. Yard fees take a minute or so to pay in Portugal on a phone app once the payment is set up to transfer to their bank acc no & sort code, no charges either to transfer to euros or to their bank. Interbank exchange rate though with a markup at weekends. .
 
Halifax Clarity card. Load pounds on it and spend in virtually any currency in the world. Seem to get decent interbank rate. Used it in europe, sri lanka, Thailand, vietnam over past few years. May be similar to Revolut, i don't know.
 
Basically any of the top cards for spending abroad.

Halifax Clarity (credit card)
Tandem (credit card)
Starling (UK Bank)
Monzo (UK Bank)
Revolut (Lithuanian Banking licence, HQ in UK)

Starling and Revolut will allow you to also do cheap/free bank transfers to foreign accounts too.

Don't leave too much money lying around on Revolut though it's not as well protected as some of the others mentioned above.
 
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GHA said:
Another plus 1 for Revolut.
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And a minus 150 from me. I used a Revolut card to transfer some money to German colleague. When she returned the unused balance of £150 to me, Revolut claimed that the only record of the transfer was in an email which I never received and which I had to respond to for the payment to be made. They claimed that they had kept no record of the email they had sent and so I never got the money. Coupled with their constant demands for investment, their fondness for Bitcoin and their rather odd legal status, I would not trust them further than I could throw Canary Wharf.
 
I use Caxton FX to pay my Greek yard bills by bank transfer. No charges for the transfer and a reasonable exchange rate. Once set up it’s very easy to make the payments, using either a direct debit onto your main bank account for pay using a debit card (they don’t accept credit cards). That reminds me, must pay the bill before we leave Greece....
 
I do a substantial amount of business in Hong Kong, and find that the simplest and cheapest way to transfer money is to have an account in Hong Kong with a bank that also trades in the UK; in my case HSBC, but other banks exist. I can transfer money between my HK account and the UK account with a nominal transfer fee (about £6) for the payment of a fairly low monthly fee which would disappear if I kept more money in Hong Kong. I also get the market rate at the moment I press the button, an important consideration at times. Obviously different banks have different arrangements, but I'd have guessed that for Spain, Santander must have parallel arrangements like that.
 
I have a Monzo card, which I believe is comparable to Revolut (but fully FSCS protected). I really like the app for showing and searching your spending.

I'm also with Fineco Bank which gives me a euro-denominated account and debit card. Tranfers are slow, but they're the best exchange rates I found, and I just hold a euro balance corresponding to what I might foreseeably need.
 
Thanks all, I realise that I have a Halifax credit card and we do use it for 'shopping' in Spain as there are no fees. The credit limit is only 1500 but I believe I can just pre load this with more dosh then use the card to pay the bill.
We do bank with Santander so I could also check if we adapt this for use in Spain.
Cheers
 
pcatterall said:
Thanks all, I realise that I have a Halifax credit card and we do use it for 'shopping' in Spain as there are no fees. The credit limit is only 1500 but I believe I can just pre load this with more dosh then use the card to pay the bill.
We do bank with Santander so I could also check if we adapt this for use in Spain.
Cheers
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My accounts in the UK and Hong Kong. although both with HSBC, are separate and were linked for transfers after they were set up. I visit HK fairly often, so it was easy for me to open an account there. You may need to open an account in Spain, rather than attempting to do it via the UK branch of Santander.
 
I have a German bank account, which I had the foresight to top up with plenty of money before the current difficulties started. It's particularly useful in the Netherlands, which I now visit more than Germany, because it comes with a Maestro card which is more acceptable in Dutch shops than Visa.
 
+1 for Halifax clarity CC - which you say you have already.
Santander allows free (no charge but I'm not sure about the exchange rate) Euro withdrawals in their banks in Spain.
Transferwise, who're great for rates and charges on transfers to accounts abroad, also have a multi-currency account which could be useful.
 
Not really relevant but took a minute or so today on revolut to transfer some UK to Qatar reals then buy a mouse in carrefour today, no charges and interbank rate :cool: no need to get a load of cash from the machine.
 
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