How to make payment to French account from UK bank

Ditto the comments above - it’s extremely useful, and they issue it for free. If you like you can also get a digital version (which works via Apple Wallet and the like) as a backup in case you lose the physical card.

I use mine even when in the UK - if I order anything from the EU online, for example, or buying software from US sources; I can use the Wise card to pay in the relevant currency and not have any overseas transaction fees plus a better exchange rate.

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Ditto. You may as well get the debit card because it doesn’t cost anything.

Just be careful where you use it in France, because some banks charge for withdrawals if you’re not with them.

Obviously you don’t get the credit card protection.

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A good tip, although I find I can pay with the card in most places (either via Apple Pay or with the actual card) so rarely need to bother with cash withdrawals thankfully!

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Second all the votes for WIse. We live in France and have a French account but for electronic transfers the service is still clunky and sometimes slow, so TBH I tend to use Wise for electronic transfers even for Euro payments where there is no exchange rate involved in preference to my Credit Agricole account. Never used Revolut as I’ve never needed to, but it sounds as though it works pretty much the same.

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It is increasingly worth having a card saved on your phone, I’m finding. The last few times I was in Paris there were few functioning RER ticket machines at Gare du Nord. At the entrance to the RER there was a long queue of flummoxed-looking tourists waiting for one machine. And an even longer queue for the manned counters.
Next time I’ll put the RATP app on my phone and buy with Apple Pay.
I strongly suspect there’s a deliberate policy of not rushing to repair out-of-order ticket machines so as to push people to go digital.

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Hari Krishna phones :grin:

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Be careful what you Vishnu for… :wink:

Some years ago when I still had my Lumière Films wedding video business, I shot a wedding at Bhaktivedanta Manor, the Hari Krishna place near Watford, which used to be George Harrison’s house which he donated to them.

It was an odd mix, Edwardian country house with wood panelling etc, and blokes in saffron robes wandering about. It was so hot inside one of my cameras overheated during the ceremony and cut out!

The veggie lunch was nice though.

(sorry for irrelevant anecdote)

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I have the Revolut card, in plastic. They do a virtual card but that’s beyond me. Too dim.

It can in v useful. But I’m not clear as to where it gets its money. Once when I didn’t have my bank cards to hand but was down to fumes in the van I was using it at a pay-at-pump. The pump shut down after about €6 of gaz. The screen told me that the card had no more dosh on it … :thinking:

Presumably you had a Revolut Travel Money card (https://www.revolut.com/travel/travel-money-card/).

The Wise card is also a debit card, but the money comes from your balance, if any.

You normally need to have at least €150 on your Revolut account to get self service fuel (pre-authorised amount) otherwise the card isn’t accepted. But only what you spend up to that amount is charged.

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The same applies to using a debit card in hotels - a couple of years ago I stayed in a hotel in Rouen and they did a “pre-charge” of (I think) €150 - I only stayed one night and the actual bill was charged to the card but they didn’t remove the pre-charge - I didn’t get that released for a couple of weeks!

So yes you need to keep a reasonable balance in any account linked to these cards for that reason.

Just had a look. It’s a debit card with the MasterCard logo on’t. And the €150 balance didn’t apply in this case as I got <€7 of gaz… unless it gave that amount of gaz then decided I had to top up to €150 to get any more.

That’s inconvenient. I keep as much as poss in my GBP savings a/c and only go into € as necc.

It’s the other way around - with “pay at the pump” it’s standard these days for petrol stations to apply a pre-charge on your card of around £100 / €100 before you fill up, so that they are assured of getting payment in the case of a drive-off.

What then happens is the pump registers the actual amount that’s bought, that goes through as the transaction and the pre-charge is cancelled.

But the account the card is linked to (whether a debit or credit card) has to have enough money available to cover the pre-charge amount, or the pump won’t let you use that card.

Maybe in this case you had a balance of the pre-charge amount plus €7, I don’t know…

Anyway the moral of the story is to keep a few hundred squids in whatever account you use to pay for stuff like petrol or hotel bills where pre-charges are common (or have a suitable credit card limit).

Car hire is another situation where this happens, but the amounts are higher, €200-€300 or more if you hire a posh car. :slight_smile:

In those cases I use a C/C. I didn’t know it worked with D/Cs as well, in some cases.

I learned two things today. That was one. The other, as I predicted elsewhere on SF, is that tomorrow will indeed be another - and the last, I’m told - of the sulphorous Jour Rouge.

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I’ve seen €1,700 required for an economy car.

Hi @captainendeavour - if it’s of any use to you - I have a tiny mobile internet allowance per month but have a 3 network 24GB 24 months card for emergencies - you know what it’s like, sometimes the mobile internet is that important. Just run a hotspot from an ageing tablet.

This thread was great.
Interesting comment that Lloyds beats TorFX.

– With TorFX, can we transfer money from UK a/c £ into Revolut or Wise account Euro?

– And imagine we’ve a Revolut or WIse acount and it has 3 sub-accounts eg UK, USA and France - does the card know to take the correct currency conditional on the country we’re in ie Euro in France, £ in UK

– and imagine there’s not enough in our Euro pot - will it dynamically extract and convert money from our £ pot to pay?

I think (at least in that last question) that that’s how Starling Bank works.

I have Revolut and Wise accounts but only use them both once - have used Starling several times though.
Starling Bank isn’t mentioned much here so thinking it’s bad!

A slight tangent but well worth noting re car hire in Spain.

It’s many years since I learned of this scam and avoided the companies which perpetrated it.

Some bandits stipulate that the car must be returned with an empty tank. Of course, nobody risks running out on the way to returning the car, esp if then taking a flight or train.

Whatever is left in the tank is not credited to you. They say return it empty. You hand over the car and it disappears. Any remaining is your business. They ‘fill’ the tank at a monstrous €/L as if it were bone dry. By the time they write the bill it’s too late to start protesting …