USA Bills and Accounts

Hi there.  I hope this is the right place for this topic.  I'm fully prepared to be shuffled! 

When I make my move to York, I will have a number of credit accounts in the US that I will continue to pay on, and use when I am visiting the States.  What is the best/cheapest way for me to pay on these US $ accounts now that my banking and earnings will be in ££?

Thanks,

Jennifer

I'm keeping my US account open to pay off my US credit cards with. I'm hoping to be able to set up a UK account and transfer my money using paypal or something similar. I don't have too many US bills though so not sure if that would work if you have a number of them.

I have one VISA card that I'm paying off slowly but surely.  I kept my Bank of America account open and periodically hubby transfers money via his paypal to my paypal and into that account and I pay them electronically. 

We may have a bigger amount to deposit next month, so I'm interested if anyone has suggestions cheaper than paypal.

I've been very happy doing transfers with XEtrade www.xetrade.com  Setting up an account is free and they only charge fees per transaction if you are doing wire transfers, and even then it's way cheaper than most banks.  I'm doing mostly transfers from my US $ account to my UK £ account, but you can do transfers both ways.  All you need is a bank account on both sides. 

There are a number of posts on this board about it if you do a search for xetrade.  Hope this helps

I've been very happy doing transfers with XEtrade www.xetrade.com  Setting up an account is free and they only charge fees per transaction if you are doing wire transfers, and even then it's way cheaper than most banks.  I'm doing mostly transfers from my US $ account to my UK £ account, but you can do transfers both ways.  All you need is a bank account on both sides. 

There are a number of posts on this board about it if you do a search for xetrade.  Hope this helps

Same here.  Just got my account all set up and will make my first trade next month! 

I'll check out XEtrade.  The one time we have transferred cash from the UK to my bank here in the US we did it as a bank-to-bank transfer, which apparently is a bit different than a wire transfer, as the HSBC representative offered both options.  It ended up costing about £20 to complete, for a fairly large sum of money.  I just suspected we can do better ... .

Warning to those who would use this method, however - if the US bank is a credit union, they will have a "middle-man" bank to receive the incoming deposit and make the conversion, and this can take several days.  It was unnerving just waiting to make sure it would come through all right!

I know Paypal is definitely not the way to go.  Their percentage + fees are quite high.

Thanks for the information.  Has anybody here used EXtrade and not had a good experience?

Jennifer

i HIGHLY recommend XE trade.  I've been using it for over a month now and there are absolutely no fees if you transfer your funds to them via BACS transfer in UK and then via EFT in the US (i have been told there is a fee going the other way, but i haven't transferred money from the US to UK).  the entire process has taken an average of 4 days for all the transfers i have done and they send you confirmation e-mails when your transfer starts and then again when it has completed. 

i agree there's a better way to transfer money than from bank to bank...

i've read many posts here with glowing reviews for xetrade.

i use currency exchange house for my transfers. easy to set up an account, no problems, great customer service.
http://www.customhouse.com/

my sister first used them to transfer from US to Canada.  I use them to transfer US to UK. 

if you want any specific info pls let me know.

I'll check out XEtrade.  The one time we have transferred cash from the UK to my bank here in the US we did it as a bank-to-bank transfer, which apparently is a bit different than a wire transfer, as the HSBC representative offered both options.  It ended up costing about £20 to complete, for a fairly large sum of money.  I just suspected we can do better ... .

Warning to those who would use this method, however - if the US bank is a credit union, they will have a "middle-man" bank to receive the incoming deposit and make the conversion, and this can take several days.  It was unnerving just waiting to make sure it would come through all right!

I know Paypal is definitely not the way to go.  Their percentage + fees are quite high.

Thanks for the information.  Has anybody here used EXtrade and not had a good experience?

Jennifer

I use XETrade to transfer money back and forth AND my US bank is a credit union. No problems with the transfers as XETrade does it as an EFT which takes no time at all.