help with paying my Spanish marina bill please!

[Rafiki]

And another for Transferwise, very good exchange rates and very very low charges. You can pay them via debit card or by bank transfer to Transferwise in the UK, all seems to work very smoothly indeed.

 

[dune16]

Big fan of Revolut here. After you've used the card for a while you can use the "auto top-up" feature which means when your balance drops below a certain amount it will automatically top-up, absolutely no need to use my UK cards when abroad. Used them for the last 18 months or so with quite a lot of travelling around and the exchange rate and lack of fee's has saved me a pretty penny compared to me previously using my bank (HSBC) for everything. Zero issues to report for me personally.

 

[Heckler]

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?

Ive just paid my marina bill in Albufeira with my Halifax Clarity Card, chose pay in Euros and got interbank rate of 1.11 something, pissed off I didnt leave it two days when it went over 1.12
It would have saved me £20 plus! but heyho!

 

[Mikedefieslife]

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.

Monzo and Revolut are very different. Monzo is a current account and cannot hold foreign currencies. Monzo charges 3% if you withdraw more than £200 from foreign ATMs in a calendar month.

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

You cannot pre-load credit cards, they aren't allowed to hold deposits and usually also against their terms and conditions. Halifax will charge interest from the day cash is withdrawn from ATMS, but will also allow you to pay it off instantly, this negating the interest. Interest on regular transactions will be based on statement date.

+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.

Be careful with Santander. They recently completed the rebrand of another Spanish bank they bought, but even though all the ATMs are branded Santander, some are still on the old bank's network and automatically impose a charge or up to £5. Santander will refund this but it's not an automatic process.

In my mind the best cards for are:

Starling for euro account and foreign ATM withdrawals - no limits, and mastercard exchange rate
Revolut for transfers - ATM limits, interbank exchange rate so slightly better than mastercard - no FSCS protection though.
Halifax Clarity - foreign purchases with full S75 protection if valued between £100-30,000
Tandem - similar to Clarity, but interest on cash will run until statement date. Full S75 protection
Monzo - for regular point of sale spending only, or withdrawing less than £200 from ATMs per month

Transferwise - rates are always lower than Revolut, and fees are higher than Starling for foreign transfers, but otherwise it well trusted now and works well.

There are others but the above are some of the most popular and offer some of the best benefits.

 

[petem]

TransferWise for me too.