PRO TIP: When you win an auction in another country, pay the auction house in the currency of the country it is incorporated in!
In other words, have your bank convert to that country's currency before sending a wire there.
My story on this is that I recently won an auction for a wristwatch that took place in Switzerland and the winning bid was CHF115,000. The auction house proceeded to invoice in USD (the currency where I live) and the invoice was for USD124,200. I was prepared to wire this amount when it occurred to me that it was a significantly higher conversion than what was being posted that week when I googled the conversion rate. I asked the auction house to convert the invoice back to the winning bid (CHF115,000) which they did, no questions asked. Then I had my bank do the conversion and the amount paid out of my US account was $119,182!! This was $5,000 less than it would have cost if I had paid in USD to the auction house as per the original invoice! Wow!
I suppose that you purists that are in financial markets would find this to be an obvious strategy, but for me, it was a real eye-opener.
Well done.
Always keep an eye out on conversion rates, especially with such large amounts of money! Timeless lesson, cheers, Filip
One touring band 'lost' $650,000 due to currency conversion by banks.
On April 7th 2022 the site Music Business Worldwide had an article and how bad the unneeded losses are due to different currencies. Look up 'With touring costs spiraling.' Of course crypto solves a lot of this, including delays from send to receive. So yes, be aware that using banks for currency conversion can be very costly.
True, and the same holds with virtually any foreign purchases (all my credit cards are from the US, so while in Italy I too am "abroad"! :-) Always pay in the *local* currency, or else the conversion fees are easily several percentage points... ;-)
Of course, the best cards to this purpose are those carrying no foreign transactions fees (FTFs). I have a pretty good "collection" of credit cards, and all three of Visa, Amex and Mastercard have a reasonable (and essentially comparable, I would say with a slight edge in favor of MC) conversion rate with the USD, based on the official exchange rate of the day.
Personally, I only stay away from Discover while abroad, whose cards are all "technically" with no FTFs, but the conversion they impose is *extremely* unfavorable, and they will only correct it for you once or twice a month (Hint: with Disco, you'd have to look at their rate when the charge posts, not the MUCH better rate they'll temporarily show you as "pending" for a few days....a misleading practice at best that they've systematically refused to change so far 
Note that these days it's not uncommon to find premium credit cards with no FTFs, no annual fee, and a 2% (or more) flat cash back...pretty good especially in combination with such a strong USD Cheers.
Cheers.Oh yes! Unfortunately, in my experience, cards with no FTFs are still rare outside of the US.
+1, I see it here in Italy that the system is entirely "different" (read: totally biased against the consumer), where the good cards often also carry an annual fee while yielding a minimal (if any) cashback ;-)
I follow this market closely in the US (and I opened 16 new major, no-fee credit cards in the last 2.5 years alone, while keeping a 800+ credit score...if I do something I like to do it well! ;-)) However, I'd never open a card (or even a bank account!!) here in Italy or, most likely, in the rest of the EU
Sad situation, and pushed to this extent, certainly not in the interest of the bank themselves in my view! ;-) Cheers.
Yes, i take care of that with any and every purchase!
And even better, don't let your bank do the conversion, some currency specialists get better rates.
What did you get? 😉
Best,
E.
What did you get? 😉
Best,
E.
Good advice. I lost twice on the same watch, because I sent it back to the dealer in Germany, so my English bank was able to skin me again on the refund.
This is a very volative market, the currencies market. Form one day to another, you may win or loose quite a bit. Especially for sums like these.
Yes, it's worth paying attention to exchange rates when transacting in foreign currencies! The automatic conversion rates offered are almost never worth taking - this goes for auctions, airports, services like PayPal etc.
And as pointed out in an earlier comment, even better not to let your bank to do the conversion either (if an option, and deemed worth the effort). If you can access the FX markets directly, you can trade/convert at minimal bid-ask spreads and at effectively zero commissions. Of course, this is only applicable to situations where you are making an explicit transfer, as opposed to using a card.
