bank transfers

I have not had to do this with a hotel in Italy, but I did have to pay for return shipping of a painting of mine from Italy after the exhibit was over.

Be aware that there is a service charge associated with the bank transfer. My bank, Chase, charged me around $40 above the bank transfer amount.

Unfortunate this is not uncommon especially when dealing with private owners. They may not be set up to take credit cards and they want more protection. And you are absolutely correct about it being a one way street. Wire transfers are expensive and I don't know of a good work around.

There are many small accomodation owners that don't want to play with credit cards. They want cash. Wire transfers from banks will cost you about $45 on this end and the bank at the opposite end will charge the hotel merchant. You will pay both extra charges. If this is just a deposit, I'm betting that the additional charges could reach 30% of the deposit total. With these extra charges, you may not be getting a great deal.

If you go through your bank, they will hand you a form that you don't know how to fill out. In many cases, they don't know to fill it out either. Then, you have to know the SWIFT number. After several emails, we convinced our merchant to accept cash for the full amount upon arrival. If no deal, I would look for a place that will accept a credit card. Try www.venere.com.

The last time this came up for us (abut 5 years ago) our bank suggested an international money order drawn on a local correspondence bank -- for us this was in London. The fee was substantially less in the range of $25. It was prepared in pounds, drawn on a English bank, and given to us. We mailed it to the B&B, they acknowledged receipt about a week later and all was well.

Given all the fraud around money orders, I don't know if that would work today. But you might ask your bank for suggestions.

I have been traveling to Europe since 1951 and have never been asked for a bank transfer. Find another place.

If you are stay at these hotels are only for a few days I would just find another hotel. The only time I have wired money as a deposit was for long-term stays of several weeks for vacation rental.

I agree with Charles - find different accommodations!

There are a lot of smaller lodgings in Italy (and other countries) that will accept a credit card to secure a reservation, but require CASH for payment of the bill.

Check the Italy Guidebook for listings of LOTS of accommodations in both Florence and Rome.

Happy travels!

We've done bank transfers twice - once for a small B&B in Sicily 1 1/2 years ago and once for a rent-by-owner place in the Dordogne- so it does not seem strange to me at all that the private owners on VRBO have asked for this. In both cases they were for a deposit only, not the entire amount. For the B&B, the deposit was only about $100 and yes, the bank wire cost me about $35. I did think "what if we show up and the place is horrible" but in both cases they were exactly as portrayed and this is how the small/private business owner worked.

Ask them if they'll take a traveler's check instead, and agree to hold it until you get their and return it to you on payment of your rent. It's about the only good use for traveler's checks I can think of. Our VRBO owner only asked for a personal check for $500, telling us she would hold it until we arrived and then give it to us on our last day. (We paid cash up front for the apartment when we arrived.) But she would have been out of luck had we decided to back out and do a stop payment on the check. There's an amount of trust involved. It worked out fine for us.

If the apartment owner will hold your personal check or traveler's check, that's a good way to go. However, if that isn't acceptable, there is a way you can send money without the high cost of a wire transfer. Open an account with www.xe.com/fx. Money will be taken from your checking account by electronic transfer, a bank draft will be issued in the currency of your choice, and sent by US mail directly to the recipient of your choice. The exchange rate will be only slightly higher than the international rate on the date the transaction is initiated. There are no other fees. For security purposes, it takes a little time and effort to set up an account, but everything goes swiftly and smoothly after that.

Also, if you don't want to have to make repeated trips to ATMs to get cash to pay the bill for the rest of your stay, you can have a second draft issued in the name of the apartment owner but sent to your home. Take it with you and hand it to the owner yourself.

Bank transfers are very common with Europeans - so I do not think this is any sort of red flag or anything really...however, I do always feel safer paying by credit card - at least you do know there's some back-up if anything is terribly wrong with the accommodation! One option is to ask them to sign up for a PayPal account - there is a small fee for them to accept money, but you could offer to cover that...and then it is free for them to deposit (bank transfer) into their account...AND you get to pay with a credit card; this is what I use for my vacation rental.