Wire Transfer Fees

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I hate wire transfers to pay for tours or hotel rooms. I would much rather pay a 3-4% fee and pay by credit card. An issue came up with two different requests for wires this week, that I hadn't encountered before. They both wanted me to send money, with me paying their fees for accepting a wire, an option called "OUR". I just learned that in many countries there are three options when wiring money: either by OUR (paid by me) or SHA (shared) or BEN (beneficiary pays the charges). Their bank forms have a check box for one of these options. I have been to three banks, and I have not been given an option. I don't know if this is a US regulation, or if most banks do not want to deal with this issue at the consumer level. I pay my bank's fees upfront, and any fees charged to the operator for receiving the wire is paid by them. Has anyone else dealt with this issue?

Like you have done in the past, I pay the bank fees upfront and the operator pays for the fees for receiving the transferred money. Whenever I have had to wire-transfer (not that often anymore), I like to wire 50% of the fee and bring the rest in cash. I also prefer paying the 3 or 4% credit card fee and not have to deal with wire transfers.

Like Joe, I have always paid upfront when making a wire transfer. My Bank of America manager tells me that the fee is the same, whether you are transferring $5.00 or $5,000.00. It's $45 if I make the transfer in US dollars and $35 if I make the transfer in the local currency.
I will be making a rather large payment within a couple of weeks for a month-long trip to India and Sri Lanka and am still deciding whether to do wire transfer for $35 or credit card with a 3.5% fee. I'll compare the costs.