Sorry, I know this question has been asked a million times but every thread I read for information ends up with people arguing and no real good information.
Ok, I need to send some money from my UK Barclays account to my Scotiabank account in Canada. I was thinking I should send ﾃつ｣100 at first as I'm a little dubious sending the money, then when I know it's working ok I'll send about ﾃつ｣3000. Any good advise will be much appreciated, I've only been in Canada for 5 days so I've never done this before.

Simplest, if you can wait 30 days for the cheque to clear, is to write yourself a UK cheque and deposit it in your Scotiabank account. That's cheaper than doing a transaction via your Barclays account. You will get a competitive exchange rate with little or no charges.

Otherwise I see that Barclays online banking has now enabled self-service international transfers, although they seem to charge approx 3.5% based on the exchange rate they are quoting.

For the DIY online banking international transfer option, as long as you know the SWIFTBIC (which is NOSCCATT) and your full Scotiabank account number (which is the branch Transit number + your account number), it should be straightforward. Your Scotia branch will give you those details in the correct format.

I think you will be charged $15 by Scotiabank for the FINTRAC notification (you don't pay that if you write yourself a UK cheque) and there may be other fees from Barclays - I haven't tried this, so I don't know.

You may be able to get a good rate from a forex company for a ﾃつ｣3000 transfer.

I don't have a cheque book. But I've just realised Barclays only charge 1.8% to withdraw cash from a scotibank cash machine. I'm not in a hurry to get the money moved over so I'm just going to withdraw $600 everyday then just put it into my bank account once it's built up.

That works too!

RBC appears to have a $400 dollar limit when I do that, although I'm pretty sure I had more once in Montreal from a TD.

I suppose it's possible the $400 limit was temporary.

Banks generally give a poor rate on checks, especially small ones, and you have no control over it - you just get the rate on the day, which might be a week or more after you deposit the check.

Whereas with an on-line transfer you know the rate real time, so you know what rate you accept. With an on-line transfer the rate will be close to the "mid rate" (what the media usually reports as "the exchange rate"). You will also pay less in fees, and sometimes can avoid the wire fee too (credit by "ACH"). The difference on ﾃつ｣30,000 between a check and a competitive on-line FX remitter service could easily by C$1,000 or more.

That is contrary to my experience. I have deposited cheques and got the same rate the FX house was offering. One has complete control over when one does the transaction. Rates varying happen all the time, you do a transaction and murphys law the rate goes up, cheque or online.

Banks give an appalling rate on cash. I usually phone the FX desk of the bank, get a rate, if I like it, trot off down there and deposit the cheque. Sometimes FX houses are better, but lately I am finding the cheque rate is as good.

Pulling cash out of an ATM has to be the most expensive way of transacting FX. There is no way to tell what rate you are going to get, whether the banks are marking up the FX in addition to their charges.

I use Travelex online, its easy and I get a good rate. They take is straight from my UK account and transfer it to my Canadian account. There is as a small charge for using this service.