Since David’s is in Canada, almost ALL credit cards will charge a foreign transaction fee on the order of 3%.
I’m curious if anyone has tried to use PayPal, and if they were able to avoid or reduce the foreign transaction fee that way? I’ve been reading mixed reports.
I actually have a contact through a direct owner. But if that doesn’t ultimately work out, I’d like to use David’s first as my backup choice…but the foreign transaction fee would be nice to avoid if possible!
You probably did this already I’m sure, but just throwing it out there just in case:
Worth checking any travel credit cards you may have as some no foreign transaction fee deals - The Barclay Arrival is one I have used in the past (ala my old sign-on rewards post here on forum.)
I don’t have any travel credit cards. (Well, the Disney Visa Rewards card is the closest I have.) I only have two credit cards (other than like a gas station card, etc). One is used for recurring on-line payments, and the other is used for POS and one-time on-line purchases.
Mostly because, well, I don’t generally travel. (Other than driving.)
Yep, I mostly used Barclay Arrival for the travel points hacking myself, then dropped it.
I may have answered my own question. This is what I found on PayPal’s own website:
From the looks of it, as long as payment is supplied from a bank account directly, there would be no foreign transaction fee apart from the maximum of $4.99.
Funding with a credit card, however, would mean also paying the 2.9% funding fee (essentially, the same as a credit card’s own foreign transaction fee).
I’ve used PayPal less than a handful of times, so I’m not sure how it all works out in the end. It does mean that doing it this way eliminates earning Disney Visa Rewards points. But better to lose out on a 1% reward than to pay a 3% fee!
I know that I have read on MouseSavers that private owners cannot accept PayPal. Can David’s accept it?
Yeah. David’s accepts PayPal. That part I know!
In the end, hopefully the private owner works out, because they have ownership at BLT and BWV, which is where we want to be, so we can get 11 months out from the same person. But I’m having back up plans, and back up back up plans. 
Is it possible that David’s has set up his payment system with PayPal such that transactions are not considered foreign? Like, if you’re depositing in another PayPal account I would assume they would not charge the fee. But maybe not.
ETA: This person says they used their credit card through PayPal and avoided the fee. That was in 2017 so maybe things have changed. I’m still looking through the thread.
I’ve never been charged a transaction fee when using our Disney Visa with David’s.
David’s wouldn’t charge it, your credit card company would. And I checked…all incarnations of the Disney Rewards Visa card have a 3% foreign transaction fee.
Good to know!
I used Paypal credit in 2017 and definitely did not get charged a fee.
They pay out via PayPal to owners, and they accept it as payment:
Did you see the thread on MouseOwners where people said PayPal froze their accounts for using it booking private rentals?
No, missed that one.
That’s a bit of a PITA, as I’m not sure how else I would pay if I rented privately. I was thinking about it for our next trip. I would only ever rent from the people I know over there though.
Hopefully someone would accept a direct bank transfer, why don’t people just use that anyway? 
I got charged a conversion fee by PayPal when I got payment from David’s. Either that or it was a transaction fee from PayPal.
Either way, I just accepted it as one of those things.
My upcoming trip is a private rental. I had to go through Zelle. Since my bank does not offer Zelle I have had to work around weekly limits. It took a while but I got it now,
Not heard of Zelle! What do you mean you had to work around weekly limits though, if your bank doesn’t offer it though?
I know some people like a personal check (cheque, but I’ll leave that for now lol), but obviously I couldn’t do that. And U.K. banks now really don’t do bank cheques either.
Zelle is an app. Some US banks use it for direct transfers. Since my bank does not you cannot make a payment of more than $500 in a week. The first time I used it I took over a last minute Kidani reservation. I think it was $710 and the owner let me pay it over two weeks. I am working with the same owner for my GFV/BLT stays so I split the 50/50 payment over 4 weeks.
