Apartment payment: bank wire or credit card?
 

We are ready to book a Lake Como apartment for a week in September. Most we looked at wanted a deposit by bank wire. We would like to pay by credit card for some possible protections. Is bank wire (ie; cash) the accepted and only practice?

Thanks

It doesn't much matter what is generally accepted method -IF that is what the apt you want is asking for...you don't seem to have much choice.

We are renting 3 different places in France this fall. For 2 of them, we are paying using Papal; the other took a US check to hold as security (VeRY unusual) and full cash upon arrival.

Aah, looks like the Vatican is in a new line of business. Sorry, DebitNM, I could resist your typo for Paypal.

To the OP, one of the reasons I like renting through agencies is they usually allow you to pay with a credit card. Whereas individual owners never do. Though common in Europe, bank wire from the US can get quite expensive.

OOps, make that couldn't resist. Hoist by my own petard....

LoL Mimar! still working out the kinks with iPad auto-correct!

For far less than the cost of a bank wire, you can get an international draft in euros. It's essentially a cashier's check in a foreign currency. My bank charges about $7.00 for one (the cost of a wire is 4-7 times more than that). You put it in the mail, and your apartment owner deposits it as if it were (and it is) a regular check in euros.

paypal?

Places vary. Agree with DebitMN that if the apartment you want only accepts payment by wire transfer, that's pretty much what you have to do. One of the reasons they don't want credit card payments is so that they could avoid being on the bad end of your credit card guarantees.

We found out that we could do very cheap wire transfers out of our Schwab investment accounts. Our "nationally renowned" home bank was charging us not only upfront costs, but extra middleman prices after the fact, plus our landlord's bank charged her a deposit fee. The rule is that what monies do not get to your landlord you have to pay.

The only fee we ended up paying with Schwab was our upfront payment. Our landlord's bank didn't charge her a fee when we did the Schwab, much to her amazement.

PS--Landlord would not accept a bank draft. We tried. (sigh)

there is a little publicised european euro transfer service, which covers the vast majority of europe. we only came across it by chance when a customer of ours wanted to pay that way; we now do it all the time.

here's the link:

http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/...r/index_en.htm

sadly, i don't think that it extends to US banks.

www.xe.com advertises inexpensive money transfers. Ditto www.oanda.com. Never tried them myself, so buyer beware.

I had this same issue with an apt in Varenna. Needed the funds paid wire transfer or credit card in four days. I wanted to write a check- no. Cash when we arrived-no. Bank draft- no.
Wire transfer avail in UK pounds or a bank in Italy Euros.
I would also be responsible for all fees on both ends, so I paid by credit card. Cannot wait to see the bill with exchange rate and penalties! Good luck.