Cheapest Easiest way to Txf money between US/UK

Hi there!

I would like input on what people think is the easiest and cheapest way to send money between the UK/UK and vice versa. Please let me know your experience in regards to this. I have used pay pal, but they take a %, I know anything you use will incur a fee etc. I just want to broaden my understanding of options.

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EDIT: Some specifics on how your transfer worked would be appreciated, I imagine there can't be too many ways of doing it etc., I just don't know how else I could research it and get a clear idea if I don't have some specifics

I really really appreciate anyone posting their experience, because of our situation my DF will be sending me money for the plane ticket and the moving of my meager 100 cubic feet of stuff heh just want a cheap reliable way to do it.

I transfered some money to Molly in the States last week and I just did it as an online payment from my bank - the difference being a £9 fee and the rate was a bit lower. Overall however I was surprised how easy and effective it was.

How did you do it, was the fee paid based on the amount transfered? What bank did you use, and was it a bank to bank transfer? I don't understand about the online payment from your bank etc. if you could give more details I would appreciate it, you can PM me if you want... hehe don't want any personal information etc I just am curious.

It was through HSBC via online banking. The fee is set (£9 upto £10k, £15 above that)

It was direct to her account and all it asked for was the routing number, IBAN number (as the US doesn't use IBAN numbers I just used the routing number with the account number on the end) and her address which I entered along with the amount I was sending.

It showed the conversion rate before I confirmed and then I just pressed pay and it was done. It took two payments out of my account; one for the money amount and another for the fee.

Her mom works at the bank and the money appeared in her account within minutes  (although whether it cleared and was available I don't know as she only needed it a few days later to pay bills)

I know there are other ways where you can get a better rate but as this way was so easy we're going to use it to transfer money over to pay for wedding things.

Anything else - let me know.

I have a bit of a long story to how we got to the point we are at now and the money transfers I make from our account in our credit union to our account here (we bank w/Barclays).
So I'll try to keep it simple...
I go to my online acct. w/my credit union (mind you this c.u. is not too big) and I send them an email.  The link to the email has to come when I'm looking at my acct.  that way it is protected and private.  I send them the info such as the IBAN # and something else, can't remember what they are called but I found that info very easily on my Barclays account statement. 
So I send them that email.  I tell them how much and to who and stuff like that.  My c.u. charges me $6 or $8 to do the transfer.  I think I get a charge from Barclays as well but I'm not really sure.  The money then appears on my Barclays account about 2 days later.
You do have to make sure that you U.S. bank does not use an intermediary to facilitate the transfer.  Some do. 

I have found Paypal to be cheapest. I have one UK paypal account linked to my UK bank and another for my US bank. There is a fee of something like $1 for the exchange and it's free to extract the money from Paypal into the bank account in the US, and I that's the same coming into the UK as well for amounts over £50 (otherwise it's 25p). Paypal to Paypal transfers are pretty much instant and it takes 5-7 days to get from Paypal to bank.

I have found Paypal to be cheapest. I have one UK paypal account linked to my UK bank and another for my US bank. There is a fee of something like $1 for the exchange and it's free to extract the money from Paypal into the bank account in the US, and I that's the same coming into the UK as well for amounts over £50 (otherwise it's 25p). Paypal to Paypal transfers are pretty much instant and it takes 5-7 days to get from Paypal to bank.

I used Paypal to xfer my money from my US checking account to my fiance's UK checking. I began the process 30 July and after 3 failed attempts (on Paypal's part for sending the wrong amount once and using a check number over and over the other times - which my bank denied) we finally ended up with the money on 3 Sept. I've never had issues with Paypal before, and to xfer $1200 it was only a fee of $5 (much cheaper than a xfer via my bank or Western Union). I think I just happened to have bad luck after they messed up the first one. But forget it if you get the same rep I did over and over on the phone. Very broken English and wasn't listening to what I was saying. Even a rep from my bank ended up hanging up on him while we were on a 3-way call the first time to explain it was their error regarding the amount (They sent $1400 even though I typed $1200 and were trying to refuse to change it).

Not sure if I will use Paypal again, but ideally, it's much cheaper than any other method I've seen unless you can do it bank to bank.

I've been using XETrade.com. It's a bit more complicated--you have to set up an account with them and then transfer money into it from your UK account, and then from it to your US account. However, the exchange rates they offer are better than any interbank ones that I've seen.

Thanks =)

I am heading off to England though on the 24th and we just ended up using paypal =) I will look into it tho because I will be on occasion having my sister shop for me and send me back goodies since I imagine we will be too broke til I can get a job to travel to the US in the near future =) it's nice to have a look tho and figure stuff out in advance =)

Just to concur with giblet, xetrade.com is great.  There are NO fees.  They make their money on a small difference in exchange rate, perhaps 4 cents below the interbank exchange rate for something as small as $1000.  Often banks will charge 8-10 cents below interbank and a fee of £5-10 to do the same exchange.
It's all done online, you issue a normal (free) BACS payment from your bank account (very easy if you have online banking but could be done in branch or over the phone if you don't) to their UK account and then they do the transfer from UK to US.  You can do regularly monthly payments or one-off payments, whatever you like.

You do have to send them a copy of your passport page and such identification and signup form for money laundering purposes but once that is done your account is ready to go.

For reasonably small amounts of money, I've been using my Bank of America card at a Barclay's ATM. There's an agreement in place between the two banks such that you don't have to pay a foreign transaction charge, atm fee, etc. Basically, it's a straight across conversion using the forex rate. You simply can't get a better rate than that. If you need to pull out larger amounts of money, you can ask BofA to increase your withdrawal limit to $1700 a day for a week or so. It may be a bit of a pain in the ass if you're pulling out money for a mortgage here, but it's great for everything else.

If you don't already have a BofA account, you can open one online. You may need to temporarily provide a US address, but I was able to update my records to the UK, once I arrived (many other banks wouldn't let me - capital one, ing direct, etc.) I can't really recommend BofA on their own merits, but this partnership agreement makes them pretty desirable.

Basically, it's a straight across conversion using the forex rate. You simply can't get a better rate than that.

What is the spread on the exchange rate?  Are we talking a couple of pennies less or much different from the interbank rate?  I'd be interesting to compare this to something like XETrade which also doesn't charge any fees, but has a pretty good rate although granted, it does take 2-3 days for the trade to complete on average.

What is the spread on the exchange rate?  Are we talking a couple of pennies less or much different from the interbank rate?  I'd be interesting to compare this to something like XETrade which also doesn't charge any fees, but has a pretty good rate although granted, it does take 2-3 days for the trade to complete on average.

It's hard to get the exact details, but I don't believe there is a spread. It seems to be the flat forex rate (although I'm not sure if it's based on the hourly rate or the daily rate). This is, at least, what has been implied to me by BofA and others.

For example, I pulled out £500 on 14 Oct and paid $849.70 for it (for a rate of $1.6994 = £1). Since I pulled the money out in the UK morning, it's probably most reasonably to look at the previous day's forex rate (13 Oct = $1.7037). Forex is updated around the clock, though, so it's hard to tell if this difference ($0.0043) is a margin they add or if it was based on the then-current hourly rate (which could very well have been something around what I paid). In any event, even if it is a margin-add, I suspect 0.0043 is better than what any trading company will give you.

Since I pulled the money out in the UK morning, it's probably most reasonably to look at the previous day's forex rate (13 Oct = $1.7037).

That's not true, the interbank rate on 13 October was according to xe.com site:
GBP - USD   United States Dollars   1.7377737823   0.5754488934
And on 14 October:
GBP - USD   United States Dollars   1.7483888219   0.5719551552

So I suspect you lost roughly 3-4 cents/pound off the interbank rate.

That's not true, the interbank rate on 13 October was according to xe.com site:
GBP - USD   United States Dollars   1.7377737823   0.5754488934
And on 14 October:
GBP - USD   United States Dollars   1.7483888219   0.5719551552

So I suspect you lost roughly 3-4 cents/pound off the interbank rate.

Since the forex market is 24 hours, it could be a bit arbitrary when a particular site/market decides to figure out the daily spot rate. My figures were from http://www.x-rates.com/d/USD/GBP/data120.html, which seems to correspond favourably with other sources (e.g. http://www.exchange-rates.org/history/USD/GBP/T, http://fx.sauder.ubc.ca/data.html, etc.)