Amazon.Co.Uk Payment's € vs £

Luckycharms_74

HI All

Just wondering about amazon payments. I normally pay in sterling but for this order some how picked Euros as the currency :rolleyes:. I see on my order Amazon charged me about €10 more on their currency rate than if i had picked Stg and let my credit card company charge me the conversion.

Anyone else have this experience

nompere

It defaults to payment in euro at the checkout page. (I've just checked.)There is an "switch currency" option which puts it back to sterling. You're right - the sterling option always seems to cost less.

jor el

How much was the order for, and where are you getting a credit card rate to compare to? €10 seems like a lot, but not if it was an order of hundreds of euro. There is normally a discrepancy as they won't update their exchange rate as often as the banks, and they need to allow for movement in the rate.

Luckycharms_74

jor el wrote: »

How much was the order for, and where are you getting a credit card rate to compare to? €10 seems like a lot, but not if it was an order of hundreds of euro. There is normally a discrepancy as they won't update their exchange rate as often as the banks, and they need to allow for movement in the rate.

The order was for £212. When amazon converted at checkout it came to €254.
Putting £212 into currency xe it comes up at €243
http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/8244/81801489.png

jor el

xe.com's rate is not the rate your credit card will charge. The exact rate you get will depend on the bank. Also note that all banks charge an extra fee for non-euro purchases, which will further reduce the difference.

The real difference between Amazon's rate, and your bank's rate, will likely be less than 1%. That's still maybe €2 in your pocket, but it is never going to be the €10 you thought it was.

jpb1974

"Putting £212 into currency xe it comes up at €243"

It is possible that this will probably only reflect the stock market exchange rates.

The likes of banks, credit card companies and online retailers will have their own mark up factored in so their exchange rate might be slightly less favourable.

Luckycharms_74

Yeah thats a bad example to have the straight exchange rate as comparison. I guess the real difference will probably be a just a few Euros .

Thats for the help .

I'll be standing in the corner over here >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>:D

jor el

Luckycharms_74 wrote: »

I'll be standing in the corner over here >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>:D

Don't forget your hat ^

:pac:

rubadub

I have done this before.

rubadub wrote: »

I ordered some items on amazon on 30 april. Came to

-Order Total: GBP 93.48

using their currency converter it was

-Payment Total: EUR 112,43

I checked on XE at the time and it was

93.48 GBP=107.672 EUR

Of course nobody gets this and it is usually 2-3% more than this using CC or paypal so I chose to pay in sterling via CC.

My BOI mastercard statement was
93.48GBP RATE 0.8549 €109.34

So mastercard was only 1.5% more than XE
Amazon was 4.4% more
And I saved €3.09 by choosing to pay in sterling rather than use amazons converter.

My statement shows the payment on 4 May, so I wonder if it is taken on that date and if the XE rate would have been the usual 2-3% I would expect.

I think I might have posted it or worked it out on another purchase with similar results.

inforfun

I always go for the £ option.

On small purchases it might not be a huge difference but it does add up after a while.

jor el

I always pick the £ option too. You generally won't be any worse off, and mostly be slightly better. If you don't order much, and only small amounts, the saving is minute.

nompere

I'm boring as well and like rubadub have checked a few purchases and generally found about a 3% to 4% saving by buying in sterling (or dollars with amazon.com) and letting VISA carry out the exchange.

On an order of £100 it means the equivalent of a free paperback or bargain CD.

rubadub

nompere wrote: »

letting VISA carry out the exchange.

There is some site and you can check visa's current rate, you must also know the banks charges and I think the site would let you enter it. e.g. if BOI charge 1.5% you enter this and it does the math and tells you exactly how many euro it will cost, so you can make a definite comparison.

Dunno where this site is but it was posted on boards before. I am not sure if mastercard do the same, I have a dual mastercard/VISA account, difference is probably pittance and only worth knowing if you were buying a car or something.

EDIT: this seems to be the visa one, though it says "corporate" so I am not certain. http://corporate.visa.com/pd/consumer_services/consumer_ex_rates.jsp

jor el

Handy link. Must use it to check out some US$ purchases on my statement and see how accurate it is. I see you can select a date for the exchange rate, so you should be able to compare on past purchases.

91011

is it that the difference between UK vat & Irish vat is added at the end as Amazon purchases in Ireland must pay Irish vat rate.

diff is 3.5% - which seems to equal the difference. No vat on books though.

jor el

The exchange rate comes after the VAT difference is applied. Regardless of paying in Euro or Pound, you pay the Irish VAT rate.