I had this same problem last fall. My B&B allowed me to send the deposit via a Traveler's check made out in Euros. Fortunately, I was able to procure this type of check in my area and I sent it via U.S. mail. Worked out fine - took less than a week to get there. Good luck.

Michael,
Thanks for the info.

Dsevig,
When I first started sending wire transfers I got caught on that one. The default (at least at my bank) seems to be the receiver pays the fees of his bank, which makes no sense! So whenever I send wires now I tell the teller I want to pay ALL fees and I check out the printout of the transfer before signing it. The total amount of the wire transfer goes into his/her account.

Travellers cheques...I would not use those anymore. Not as common as they used to be and some banks charge to deposit them.

Are you sure a French bank would charge someone to deposit euro travellers checks in their own account? I'm just very surprised, no US bank would do such a thing, you can even use them with no fee at many stores here and other places (if they are in USD, of course).

I know a French bank might charge someone to cash them who doesn't have an account there, if they would do it at all, but am surprised they'd charge their own customers just to deposit them in euro.

My French bank charges me 18 euro for a deposit by wire or international draft. Yes, it's typical. And any B&B owner should know that and adjust his deposit requirements accordingly.

My French bank does not charge anything for an electronic transfer.

For my trip to Vietnam, I sent an electronic transfer to a company there. The transfer amount was $3000, so the bank fee of $30 seemed reasonable to me. I paid it on my end. However, the VN company only received $2970! We both checked and we found out that some small banks use a larger intermediate bank to "help" execute the transfer. It turns out that the intermediate bank also took $30, and the Vietnamese company really received only $2970.
The banks pretty much do what they want.

BTW, the VN company was quite flexible and after a few emails, we agreed to split the unexpected transfer fee.