Paying abroad: currency, methods and fees

How the money side works

• Accepted: PayPal, Wise, Skydo, and cash in person.
• Paid in full at confirmation.
• 7 or more days before the date: reschedule or cancel for a 50% refund.
• Under 7 days: the fee is kept and the date cannot move.

See the figure in your own currency first

The estimate page leads with the day rate in your own currency, converted from a reference rate that refreshes daily, and shows the US-dollar figure underneath — dollars being the one unit that stays comparable across every country covered. Look there before you think about methods: it is the difference between comparing a booking in Lisbon with one in Tokyo and comparing two exchange rates.

That converted figure is indicative, and deliberately so. It is a range, your exact quote is confirmed privately before anything is paid, and the reference rate it uses is not the rate any provider will actually hand you. Which is the whole subject of the next two sections.

The spread is the part people miss

A transfer costs you in two places. The fee is the one that is advertised; the exchange rate you are given is the one that quietly matters more. The reference rate — the mid-market rate you see quoted in the news and on the estimate page — is the midpoint between what buyers and sellers are paying. Almost nobody gives it to you. The gap between that midpoint and the rate you are charged is the spread, and it is a cost even when the transfer is labelled free.

So compare on the total: take the amount that leaves your account, and the amount that arrives, and ignore how the difference is itemised. A service charging a visible fee at the reference rate is often cheaper than one charging nothing at a rate set in its own favour.

What each method suits

• PayPal — the widest reach and the least setup, and the one most people already have. When it converts between currencies it uses its own rate rather than the reference rate, and adds a cross-border charge, so it buys convenience at a spread.
• Wise — built for exactly this: it converts at the reference rate and charges a fee it shows you before you send. Where both ends are supported it is usually the cheapest way to move money across a border.
• Skydo — a cross-border payments service, for the corridors where it is the right rail. Ask the team whether it applies to yours before assuming it does.
• Cash in person — no transfer, no fee, no spread on the booking itself.

When cash in person is the sensible option

Cash makes sense when you are already holding the local currency: you live in the city, or you are travelling there anyway and will be changing money regardless. In that case a transfer would only add a fee and a spread to money that is already in the right currency and the right country.

It is worth being clear that it does not escape the exchange cost so much as move it. If you are buying the local currency at an airport counter to pay in cash, the spread there is usually far worse than a transfer would have been. Cash wins when the currency conversion was going to happen anyway, or was never needed at all.

The terms are identical either way. Cash in person is still paid in full at confirmation against a written booking that names the date and the price — it is not a sum handed over on the day in place of an agreement.

Paying ahead, from another country

Prepaying a service on another continent deserves a moment's thought, and our own guide to companion scams is where the test lives. It is not the payment method that tells you anything. It is whether the terms existed in writing before you paid, whether the money goes to the company against a confirmation, and whether anyone is hurrying you.

The terms above are published here, on the estimate page and in the booking FAQ, in the same words. You can read them, compare them against anyone else's, and decide before a currency is ever converted.