Author Topic: Tip for EU buyers on Ali: buy in USD and not EUR  (Read 654 times)

TidyDinosaur

Tip for EU buyers on Ali: buy in USD and not EUR
« on: August 21, 2023, 06:05:27 AM »
Little tip: buy in USD on Aliexpress and let your credit card company do the conversion to EUR. This of course depend on the fees your CC company charges, but my Visa Gold seems to have a great conversion rate with almost no fees (as far as I can see).

If you let Aliexpress do the conversion, you will almost certainly pay more.



Serge_K

Re: Tip for EU buyers on Ali: buy in USD and not EUR
« Reply #1 on: August 21, 2023, 01:09:25 PM »
Which bank are you using? Traditional banks are typically horrendous with FX. It's a classic way to scam customers out of 2-3% of each transaction. Revolut is great but it's a feature, not a bug.

TidyDinosaur

Re: Tip for EU buyers on Ali: buy in USD and not EUR
« Reply #2 on: August 21, 2023, 01:53:25 PM »
I use Keytrade and Revolut. Revolut is indeed very cheap for conversion, but you have 0 protection...

carbonazza

Re: Tip for EU buyers on Ali: buy in USD and not EUR
« Reply #3 on: August 21, 2023, 04:20:00 PM »
Little tip: buy in USD on Aliexpress and let your credit card company do the conversion to EUR. This of course depend on the fees your CC company charges, but my Visa Gold seems to have a great conversion rate with almost no fees (as far as I can see).

If you let Aliexpress do the conversion, you will almost certainly pay more.

I do this too!
Same with PayPal which are  really bad on that matter.

Serge_K

Re: Tip for EU buyers on Ali: buy in USD and not EUR
« Reply #4 on: August 22, 2023, 04:12:03 AM »
Paypal is maybe not the absolute worst financial services company there is, but it's really close. Courtesy of Americans who have just a horrendous retail financial industry