After research I found YouTube premium via Ukraine to be the cheapest deal open to new subscriptions. I went for it, Algbra said they don’t support Hryvnia but Curve said they do, so Algbra are receiving the payment in pounds after Curve do the conversion. Will get cashback on that for a while too…
£3 a month for a family pass, I invited someone but it looks like they’ll need a vpn to get it working, that’ll be fine I can sort that when I see them by logging into my vpn on their phone - £1.50 per month assuming I don’t get anyone else into the “family”. A bit of a step up from 33p a month ( ) but could also benefit from ad free YouTube on the tv…
If the family one doesn’t work and to back two horses I may get another one setup for a free trial in the Phillipines which I also saw recommended, I will do this before my VPN credit runs out in case the account payment fails post trial.
I understand you can do it on existing Google accounts but I don’t in case they get shut
I open a Google account with the vpn on, I tend to pick geolocations that don’t ask for a billing address when signing up as I’m not majorly keen on bluffing some random persons address. Ukraine Google has the billing address merely as “Ukraine”.
Then I signed up and for this one I used curve as if they said I violated their tos etc I wouldn’t mind as no funds in there. Also means I can switch up the funding source if I like. 1% charge on the weekends but will be with a card providing at least that in cashback. I used Revolut for my ARS Tidal no issue tho tbh I’m probably overthinking it there.
You don’t need the vpn to use it but if you want to invite family members they will need to use one to accept the invite. Whether that can be an existing account or not I don’t know tbh it’s to be tested.
With Google before the test payment in rupees at the time was charged but the recurring payment failed due to Bank of India regs - according to the good folk of Reddit their non Ukrainian Mastercards have had the recurring billing without issue - so fingers crossed
I’ve cracked it (at least for me) this time. If I can’t crack adding close family I might set up another single named one just in case as often changing subscription type etc can trip a wire if you’re no longer using the VPN. If I cba it’s still £3 a month much cheaper than £10 over a year.
If you’re using Curve you can avoid the weekend foreign exchange rate by telling them that, say, Algbra is billed in euros which means Curve passes the charge to Algbra in euros without conversion. I do this on holiday all the time so never pay the Curve weekend rate.
Doesn’t seem to be any limit on the number of times you can change the currency
According to Reddit this route has been shut down unless you have an Indian card - so that ICICI/Pockets route might be the way to achieve that. Something to consider should this monthly sub fail - I tried this first as I could do it with existing accounts.
Ah so add another card such as Revolut or my RBS World Mastercard and change the underlying currency to Hryvni on Curve?
In fairness if I leave it with Algbra ill be charged 1% by Curve and get it back from Algbra (albeit until October I think - then I can try your method)
UAH not an option for the underlying card currency. Hey ho I can stomach 3p every odd month…would be the same with Revolut
Another thing to note, family members joining must also have a Google account set up via a VPN in the same country or it won’t work, being connected onto a VPN with an existing account failed. A minutes job to set up a new Google account and you can easily toggle the Google login with your existing one (just log into YouTube music etc with the right one)
Hmm, I’m tempted to give it a shot now. I have Apple Music already of course but when I swap to my Chinese Apple ID it gives me problems (like deleting all of my downloaded music)
Give the Ukraine method a go, or maybe try the Philippines. I can’t guarantee it will work post trial but nothing lost if it doesn’t and Redditors have confirmed the former is working for them with a foreign MC.
UK banks lost the right to passport (use their UK banking licence across the whole EU/EEA) as the English Government refused to follow Single Market rules.
Those accounts were closed as the UK banks didn’t want to create local operations for a handful of customers.
The only one that I’m aware of was Bank of Scotland’s German office. It was converted to a German company, got a German banking licence and subsequently rebranded as Lloyds Bank Germany.
I know about the passporting. Thing is that from the UK you can open an account in another country without that bank having any presence in the UK. It looks like if you live in the EU you can’t do that.
There is no English Government. We are the only part of the United Kingdom without a devolved assembly, actually (excl Mayors but iirc their devolution is shallower than the Scottish/NI/Welsh regions)
Following Single Market rules would have also made leaving largely pointless, although I admit I’d have preferred Common Market 2.0 (proposal by Nick Boles)/an EFTA Brexit as opposed to what we have now, but it’s probably not a debate for here
I don’t know about that? Other country → EU expats definitely don’t forego having an account in their home countries
For example, if I went to France I wouldn’t be closing my UK accounts. Wouldn’t even tell France they exist or my bank that I’m in France. It’s irrelevant to both parties
There are also reporting standards pretty much on a global scale of what banks need to report to their government, which finds its way back to where you are a citizen or resident of
Pretty sure even if I opened an account at NatWest International (in the Channel Islands) I’d find myself with HMG knowing about it and soon to be China, too
Pretty sure you can open an account in Hong Kong at any internationally facing bank too, just because you visit there for business sometimes. I don’t think they exclude EU citizens for that and I remember while we were in the EU it didn’t exclude me looking at it on HSBC’s “open an account abroad” section
Whilst you could move to France, not tell your bank and keep the account, if you were to tell the bank, then they would close your account. Well, most would these days, at least going by the news of widespread closures of accounts held by expats living in the EU from a few years back.
Actually being British doesn’t matter. The OH is Australian and was OK in France with UK accounts too. It’s opening them before you leave that’s the key thing.
Cool discussion guys - 50/50 on splitting up the foreign account chat from the vpn chat as they are a slightly different topic (I should have foreseen this when setting up the post with said title). But let’s see how it goes…
) but could also benefit from ad free YouTube on the tv…
account payment fails post trial.