What's the best form to pay for a car when importing from UK?

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ReadySteady

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When importing a car from Northern Ireland into Ireland, let's say the total cost of the car is £10,000, which can be paid by bank transfer or POS with the dealer.
What's the most efficient way for me to make this payment with the least exchange fees and best conversion rate?

I was considering transferring the money into a Revolut Sterling account, then making the payment of £10,000 with my Revolut card.
Or the other option is just to pay using my AIB card, allowing AIB to convert to sterling.

Any suggestions? Thank you !
 
ReadySteady said:
I was considering transferring the money into a Revolut Sterling account, then making the payment of £10,000 with my Revolut card.
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This is what I have done on two occasions, very handy and the cheapest method I could find at the time.
 
Re cards:
Revolut would have been a clear winner before they changed their pricing last year.

If you've got a standard account, once you go over 1k limit, they charge 0.5% spread on the fx rate. (Midwek, higher at weekends).
You could upgrade to Metal for 13.99 per month.

Using a debit card* AIB will charge you the Visa rate, plus 1.75%, but the charge is capped at eur 11.00 (works out at 0.1% on a transaction your size).
The visa rate is set based on closing rate previous day, and a markup of c. 0.21%
*There is no cap on the charges on a credit card.

The problem is, I believe AIB have a transaction limit on their debit cards. It used to be 5k per transaction, and a daily limit of 7k per card. Worth checking with them on this (if you've a joint account, the limit is per card, so you could double the limit).
 
Last time I did this I used Transferwise (now called Wise) Borderless Account. Good exchange rate combined with a debit card
 
money_man said:
Last time I did this I used Transferwise (now called Wise) Borderless Account. Good exchange rate combined with a debit card
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I was looking at them earlier. They charge 0.41% of the transaction to switch currencies. Unless I'm missing something, that works out more than using an AIB debit card?
Maybe I've misinterpreted the pricing?
 
RedOnion said:
I was looking at them earlier. They charge 0.41% of the transaction to switch currencies. Unless I'm missing something, that works out more than using an AIB debit card?
Maybe I've misinterpreted the pricing?
Click to expand...
Ya, I think you're right. It was a couple of years ago now, I dont think the fee was as high at the time and the card limit allowed me to make the purchase (whereas AIB wouldnt have)
 
Can you upgrade to revolut metal for one month and then go back to basic account. I think friend did that 2 years ago.
 
I upgraded to premium revolute a few months ago, decided I didn’t need it, after doing the online chat I was told I could cancel any time and the penalty is only two months fees.
 
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