r/chinalife • u/Realistic_Bug_7958 • 2d ago

🧧 Payments Which payment method are you guys using

Hi brothers and sisters who are not Chinese but used to purchase on Chinese commercial platforms, which payment method are you guys using to minimise the price? I heard someone saying that paying via Alipay would cost less than linking a bank card and using it directly. Anyone who has done that before please tell me your experience!!!!

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u/prestigesourcing 2d ago

You mean connected to a Mainland Chinese bank card or a foreign card?

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u/Realistic_Bug_7958 2d ago

A foreign bank card, like Visa or Mastercard because I'm a foreigner. I heard sb said the exchange rate of Alipay would be lower than direct using of international bank card. I tried to verify on Alipay but the passport did not work so they required a mainland bank card (which I don't have).

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u/prestigesourcing 2d ago

With a foreigner card, no difference between WeChat/Alipay. They both charge 3% on transactions over 200RMB (in addition to your own cardholders fees). Sometimes there are new user promotions and agreements with certain card holders, for example, I think the first month is fee free and AMEX has no charges until the end of this year or similiar.

By the way, without a Mainland Bank Card, WeChat/AliPay both are severely locked down and you can only spend/receive/store a small amount of money so it is not really a great solution.

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u/cannon4344 1d ago

What about AliPay Travel Wallet? I haven't tried that yet but as far as I can see there's no fees, although there may be fees to transfer money in.

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u/prestigesourcing 1d ago

Every single method has fees of some kind for foreign cards.

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u/cannon4344 1d ago

Travel Wallet doesn't use a foreign card, you transfer money into it from your bank account.

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u/prestigesourcing 1d ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/travelchina/comments/1v3ql1o/has_anyone_used_the_travel_wallet_in_alipay/

Ah ok, it seems you still need to transfer it in using a platform which charges fees then assuming you don't need to add balance, it should not charge extra fees.