If any of you have had an experience with Visa and Mastercard charging you 3% for foreign currency exchange purchases, you need to read the following:

http://www.smartertravel.com/advice...rt&value=2005-11-15&u=3E223376F1

Wish I had known this a couple trips ago. Visa and Mastercard hit you with fees that make your hair stand on end.

KarenM

Karen, thank you, that was enlightening. I usually use my Amex when charging travel for cruise fares, air, etc. However, I also use ATM's abroad a lot to pay cash for purchases on cruises because I don't shop a lot. How does it work with ATM cards? Same as credit cards?

I just noticed this on my visa purchases in Asia. I got hit with 3% fee. If I had known, I would have let the tailor charge me in us dollars. However, the "customary" exchange rate in Thailand was 40 baht for the dollar. I knew official exchange rate was better. In fact, I did save about $5 but ended up paying $9. My Amex bill on the other hand had no fees.

We were using AMEX in Scotland a couple years ago. They charged the fee too. That was a very expensive trip with the dollar in the tank and everything in the UK seems so much more expensive. Every line item on the statment had their bloody fee. Over 3 weeks with all the charges it really added up.

These credit card companies never used to do this, unless they hid the charge in the exchange rate. I remember people telling us to use the credit cards because they get institutional bulk exchange rates that an individual cannot get.

Sounds like we will be getting a Captial One credit card if they aren't charging the fees.

seems that not only are the credit card companies getting in our pockets ( as they have for years, I suppose now with the exchange rates so much not in our favor we are realizing the extra costs).. but so happens that some cruise lines and hotels are also getting in on act.. so this is a heads up.. ( Jo Ann for you and anyone else booking on them, since I know this has been happening)..
Oceania has been putting their deposits through Ireland bank .. check your credit card bill .. if you have not used Amex, you may have a card that will charge you that 3% exchange, even though you made your deposit in US dollars..
they will try to charge you for that exchange...
call them on it now!
we also had this happen on a hotel in France that I booked online through some website like hotel.com they also did that 3%.. as soon as I saw it I called them.. hello they are in England.. I'm not and put deposit in US $..
gotta watch everything these days kiddos.....

I guess I should feel fortunate. The transaction fee on my Navy Federal Credit Union Visa is only 1%.

I read a story in the newspaper that New Hampshire is now taxing the views people have from their property. The better your view the higher the tax.

I think the person who came up with that idea also came up with the idea to charge international transaction fees. Tom.

We have "market value assessment" here in Ontario. If your property is more desirable, i.e., the view is better, the taxes are higher. The assessment on my river-front cottage in Ottawa just went up 45%, it's so darned desirable, no property improvements whatsoever. So the "view" thing does not surprise me a bit.

I've been looking at my credit card agreement, and found it--Foreign Currency Mark-up 2.5%. That's my Mastercard. Unfortunately I believe that pertains when I pay RSSC, since I'm paying in USD :( . Let's see: I paid C$3,167.31 , and that was for US$1299*2=2598. At today's rate, that would be C$3,087.81 If my calculations are right, that means a markup of about 1.2%. (Ah, they claim the rate was 1.219135, that's about right.) I guess that means they don't consider USD "foreign". I'm going to have to ask them about this, very perplexing. Who knows about my Visa.

Thank you for this thread…..
I called my bank to find out about my debit card….they charge 2%. I called CapitalOne and they don’t charge anything, but I had to get an “override”, or else I wouldn’t have been able to use it out of the country they told me.
That’s good because we leave LAX tonight for Auckland and the Mariner.
jack

Where is this fee? I just got my 007 charge bill and I don't see anything listed. When I called to let them know I would be using it in Europe, they told me there was a 3% charge. Is it calculated right into the the charge or is it listed separately?

I'm going to apply for a CapitalOne card too Jack. I guess we'll use it ONLY when we're overseas. I just looked at their website, which card should I select? (there's several with no annual fee). ????

Karen, I don't see our Europe fees on our AmEx either....must be "hidden" in the amounts to try and trick us!

Karen, on my credit card the charge is listed separately. Tom.

On Amex they list it separately..

Not listed separately on my Amex Plat. But above the complete list of charges it says:

**Foreign Currency conversion rate is base rate plus 2%.

Marcie - watch out for CapitalOne. They have a tendency to pull credit reports from all 3 credit reporting agencies. You can find out more information at www.creditboards.com .

On our corporate Amex cards they don't list out the transaction fee separately.

Citibank is the worst - I think they charge 4% now.

Thanks Andrea (active website)!

I looked over the Capital One website and their disclosures and no where does it mention any International transaction fees. Does anyone else have one of these credit cards that can vouch for the no International fees? They sure have LOTS of cards to choose from.

Andrea, what does that mean, that they pull all 3 credit reports?

I can tell you that some credit card issuers will report to all three agencies and it can (and does) affect your credit scores negatively. Some card companies, because they issue cards primarily to those less credit worthy also can negatively affect your good credit.

Marcie....
No... Capital One does not charge any int. fees.
jack

I sent this to my friends.....hope you don't mind me posting this here....it's after a few glasses of wine.

Well after taking all our clothes from STL and flying out to PSP and picking up all that we had there, we drove to LAX on the 17th. .....In a van, a car wouldn't hold it all. Bonnie only cries periodically about leaving Bailey now. Hopefully that is a good sign....I want her to have fun.

We flew from Lax to Auckland NZ on Air New Zealand in coach (I had to pay for it) and it wasn't bad at all. We took a sleeping pill after takeoff and had seven good hours of sleep. The flight was 12:15 long. The food was wonderful....I guess I just miss airline food.....to me it was like a good home cooked meal.

After landing in NZ we went to pick up our bags....one of the four was missing. We figured out that another pax picked up ours by mistake.....he had to of been a stout fellow to pick it up....anyway after a few hours a truck dropped it off at our hotel, the Hyatt Regency. So all is well.....

Will hopefully write more as we go along.....

Gang, glad this article was helpful. On my AMEX small business credit card they didn't list the transaction fee below, just checked my statement from 7/03. Maybe they started doing it on the personal AMEX cards but not business? I don't know if it's hidden or not but looks like we were getting the GBP for 1.69 to 1.71. AMEX has a class action suit against them for hidding the fee BTW.

I thought I got a notice from AMEX that they would be starting to itemize the fee but don't quote me on that. I'll try to find the notice in my file, not sure I kept it though. As of 5/04 they weren't doing it on the statement from our St. Barts trip. Our trip last February to St. Maarten I used cash because the dollar was still in the tank and I had read that most of the restaurants took USD cash - the dollar 1:1 Euro so that's what we did.

My Continental Chase Mastercard was the culprit. Right below the transaction it shows:
(TRAN AMT: 153.19 PND STRLG or $257.96 + FOR. TRAN. Fee $5.16). Whew, they made a bundle on us on that trip.

We had checked into the USAA credit card since my hubby is retired military, but they only issue that to active military, so that didn't work.

I'm not sure what to think about Captial One reporting to all three agencies. I guess if you pay your bills it shouldn't matter. I don't understand why it should affect your credit score if they check all the agencies. Captial One used to have the reputation for issuing credit cards to less than credit worthy customers but they tightened up their standards around 2001 which reduced their delinquency rate making Wall Street analysts happy.

If any of you figure out which one of the Captial One credit cards looks the best, please post here.

KarenM

I just looked over them and applied for the Capital One Cash back card with no annual fee for those with excellent credit. Not sure if that was the best or not but it sounded OK (what can be so bad about getting cash back??)

Jack, Glad you made it with almost all your luggage!!