Paying US credit cards when in the UK

There was a recent thread on handling US mortgage payments while in the UK:  http://talk.uk-yankee.com/index.php?topic=55445.msg790593#msg790593

Thank you so much mentioning the Paypal. I never thought about this.
My dilema is how I am going to transfer money for my mortgage here in Canada. I called a couple banks and they charge up to $30 CND for each transaction.
Is anyone here have a mortgage back in North America, if yes how do you handle payments while living in UK?

Paypal can be one of the more expensive options.  They just hide their fees better.  Many people here are using XE.com's service.  In addition to the mortgage thread, there is also a paying student loans thread.

Another thing to think about is variable fees or fixed fees.  Depending on how much money is being transfered, that $30 may be cheaper if the amount is large enough.  It would have to be a pretty large amount though

I like XE a lot.  That's how I'm doing it.  One poster here took out a small personal loan to do everything in one fell swoop, which is appealing to me, but I worry about incurring more debt to pay debt.  If that makes sense?  I don't think it's a bad idea, I just feel like I might as well just pay them off the way I am now before getting into the whole UK loan idea.

It seems to me that xe.com vs. wire transfers between banks depends on a combination of factors: how much money is being transferred; exchange rate; how often you move money; and fees.

Is there a clever spreadsheet out there that allows one to play with these numbers?

I'm terrible at this stuff.