I don't know for sure if all credit card companies will follow Bank of America, but I guess that's pretty much what happened when foreign transaction fees first came into practice. Hopefully, AmEx and/or other card companies will see it as a competitive advantage not to impose this fee, like Capital One currently does with foreign fees.

But I think now that Bank of America has joined Citi in imposing this fee, I have to think at some point Regent will stop its voluntary practice of refunding the fees. In the past year or so, the charge caught most people by surprise because (a) it was an obscure fee buried in the fine print of credit card terms and (b) passengers wouldn't know Regent did its credit card processing in a country outside the US. But as this fee becomes more common and widespread, Regent may decide to simply disclose up front that credit card charges will be processed in US dollars in a foreign country, and stop paying refunds of the fee to its passengers out of its pocket.

In past discussions about this issue, we've theorized that Regent must do its credit card processing in Ireland because it's cheaper for them. But there's no way it's 3% of transaction amount cheaper. So if they start paying out the 3% refund on a substantially larger number of cruise and excursion payments, it will quickly cost them more than whatever they save by banking in Ireland. And it therefore seems likely to me that they will either change their banking practices to be able to process payments from US customers via a US bank, or they will stop paying out refunds to those passengers who use credit cards which impose the fee. I just hope they'll be upfront and tell people about any such changes if/when they occur.

-- Eric