Using Wise (formerly TransferWise) for large international payments toward expensive services?

We've used Wise(TransferWise) for a number of years to transfer money when traveling to Europe and have a debit card with them that I load up with local currencies - generally Euros -because it has a chip and pin capability and allows for paying in local currencies along with a tap and go feature. Never had any problems with Wise.

Wise itself is fine. I haven’t used it for payments to Thailand, but have for several European countries.Using it incurs a fee for you, but it is not large at all. It doesn’t seem to include some of the safety features a credit card does, though.

I will say when booking an all day boat trip in Phuket in 2018 for 5 people (but nothing as high as $1000), I was asked to send a deposit ahead of time by PayPal and pay the rest in cash upon arrival. So paying ahead isn’t a strange concept. Credit card fees would really eat into their profit.

I've used Wise in the past and again recently. I made two transfers of $800+ to Africa for deposits on 2024 safaris and intend to use Wise again when the final payments come due next year. Those will be much higher.

I've used them a couple times when it was the only way to book a much-sought-after place to stay. Although it did require a leap of faith (and I would always be VERY careful paying for anything this way) it wasn't difficult and it worked out fine for a couple of apartments.

That said, I did feel like I got burned once when I booked a dive liveaboard boat in Thailand (Phuket, not Khao Lak). Not because they scammed me and disappeared, but because the boat that was shown and described on their website that we had paid for (which was purported to be brand new and pretty luxurious) turned out to not be the boat they had when we showed up in Phuket (the boat they did have was old and somewhat funky); they apologized and blamed it on maintenance delays and scheduling mixups, but it was quite a letdown, and we were in a very poor negotiating position since they already had our money that I had sent to them - not using Wise but old-fashioned bank transfer.

So all that said, I think Wise is a perfectly good service, which can save a bunch of money over old-school wire transfers, and IME Wise will deliver what they promise. That doesn't mean you get exactly what you paid for, though. Years later, I did transfer a good chunk of money to a different dive liveaboard operator (to a business that was based in Egypt, but had offices in the UK, for a dive trip to the Maldives - they couldn't deal with an American credit card – my first encounter with so-called "3-D Secure" payment processing security protocols – all credit cards failed the transaction, so I had to wire them the money). The transfer went fine...and that boat was spectacular! So you never know...I think there's always some uncertainty when wiring money, it's kind of nerve-racking (as you have no doubt experienced).
Good luck and chok dee!

noting wrong with Wise, and I use them to move my own money between accounts in different countries. But, as hinted above, when you are using it to pay for something there is absolutely no recourse if something goes wrong. It is the same as handing a pile of cash in a brown envelope to somebody while blindfolded.

I've never done a bank transfer - very easy and free within Europe - or Wise to pay an unknown person. I prefer the protections of a credit card, and will seek someone who accepts it.

Thank you so much for these very helpful responses! I chuckled about handing over a pile of money in an envelope while blindfolded. This is, indeed, how it feels. Nerve-wracking for sure when we are used to using our credit card for all big payments.

It really helped to hear your comfort levels with Wise and so based on that, as well as my research and confidence in this vendor, I decided to go ahead and pay our $500 deposit with the balance to follow closer to our travel dates. The Wise app was easy to use and I was happy to have an option to use Apple Pay, which backs up to our Chase Sapphire card, instead of linking directly to our bank account.

Thanks, too, for sharing experiences about hiring boats in Thailand. Hopefully the diving liveaboard we have reserved (Blue Dolphin by Big Blue Diving Khao Lak) will deliver as promised. Fingers crossed.