How to avoid the sucky Paypal currency conversion fee when paying for Steady Options

[PeterBear]

If you don't live in the US and go with the default Paypal payment settings, you'll probably be paying 2.5 to 3% more per month for SO than you need to due to Paypal's currency conversion.

This is how I dodged the sucky Paypal currency conversion fee when paying for Steady Options. Being in Australia, I used a 28 Degrees mastercard. Any card with zero currency conversion fee and no annual fee will do.  For other countries, check out wise.com for an international debit card with really good currency conversion rates. You only need a digital card.  Don't need to pay the fee for a physical card.  Here are the Wise currency conversion rates. For the Wise site in various countries see https://wise.com/us/local-sites

To modify your existing SO payment: login to Paypal and add your card details, goto Activity; SteadyOptions payment; 'Manage Steady Options payments'; in 'Payment Method' select Edit; click on 'See Conversion options' for your card; select your card payment option (see example below "Convert with 28 Degrees Mastercard").  Note that this option includes "Your card issuer will determine the currency conversion rate and any applicable fees.".

The 28 Degrees card uses the mastercard conversion rate (set Bank Fee = 0) which I've found adds about 0.2%. The Wise card currency conversion looks better.  Not used wise myself.  My brother says it was great on 2 recent trips to Japan.

 

 

 

Edited June 12, 2023 by PeterBear
Tidy up links, minor additions

[PeterBear]

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