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Fees Charges & Exchange Rates for Foreign Credit Card & ATM Transactions

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letting quick summary take over

10/06 - slight title change to improve searchability

Message edited by: MarkM on 2006-10-25 12:14:01 CDT

Too many replies and too much disorganized info, let's focus on updating at Flyertalk's wiki page
FlyerTalk's much better formatted table
http://www.flyertalk.com/wiki/index.php/Credit/Debit/ATM_Cards_and_Foreign_Exchange

how about we also keep updating at FATWALLET too...

Please update if you learn that anyone of these is incorrect. When updating include the entire fee with the 1% visa/MC included. THANKS!

The following info comes from articles at Bankrate, USA Today, and Consumer-action.org

Each of these includes the 1% visa or MC fee:

3%
Bank of America, Cambridge Bank and Trust, Citibank, Citizens Bank, Commerce Bank, First National Bank of Omaha, JP Morgan Chase, MBNA, Metropolitan National, National City Bank, Ranier Pacific Bank, Target Visa, US Bank and Wells Fargo

2%
American Express, BB&T Bank, Charles Schwab (FIA), Merrill + (FIA), Helena National Bank, Juniper Bank, Pulaski Bank

1%
Household, HSBC, Providian (some cards), Fidelity FIA (YMMV - some accounts are being charged 3%), PenFed, USAA, State Farm Bank

No Fees
Amalgamated Bank
BMW Bank
Tompkins Trust Company
Discover
Capital One -confirmed 02/01/06 (I just returned from Egypt/Jordan and used my Capital One card for the whole trip and there were no fees added)

ellory said: As of 12/07 I have used a CapOne Cash Back rewards card in Australia. No fees. And no need to have a mortgage for application}

Me too - 12/06 trip to Israel, no fees and good rates on No Hassle Cash card. No mortgage or any other Cap1 accounts.

yeastbeast said: Still true as of 4/07. My No Hassle Cash card incurred no fees and even yielded 2% at foreign supermarkets

psychtobe said: Definitely still true 3/08. No fees, no jacked up currency exchange rates. Essentially wholesale rates for 10 days in Italy.

Still true in 9/08. No fees as always to Australia.

psychtobe said: Still true 11/08. No fees, good rates x 10 days in Spain.


The following is an older list and may or may not include the 1% fee charged by visa and mc:

Columbus Bank & Trust 2%
FNBO/Emigrant Savings Bank 1% - 2%
First Tennessee Bank 1%
Huntington Direct Bank 2%
People’s Bank 2%
Sovereign Bank 2%
WAMU now Chase 1% on ATMs November 2008

As of 10/06, there is still no transaction fee on my Charles Schwab (MBNA) card. 0%. Nothing at all. Update: As of May 2007, Charles Schwab charges 2% of the transaction amount as the fee, which puts it on par with Am.Ex. and slightly better than many other MC/Visa cards with 3% FX fee.

Bank Cards

Citibank Debit: 0% only at citibank branch, 3% elsewhere (including 7-Elevens, verified in Taiwan, 02/2007)

===================================================================
AFAIK, no one has been able to specifically confirm that they were not charged a 1% fee when using a plain (non-MC/non-VISA) ATM card (from any bank) overseas. It does not seem to be disclosed and the CSRs at all the banks just guess when asked.

Maybe a hidden 0.5%, 0.75%, or 1% is buried in the transaction somewhere, but from feedback provided by FW posters, HSBC, CitiBank, Bank of America, USAA, and credit unions seem to be offer competitive exchange rates for plain (non-MC/non-VISA) ATM usage.

Most bank assess a Foreign ATM fee ($1.50 for non-HSBC ATM), but unless you plan on making many small withdrawals via ATM (20 Euro here, 40 Euro there) the better exchange rates win out over any $1.50 fee. Bank of America has Global alliance to help avoid the Foreign ATM fee, but IIRC their Foreign ATM fee is $5 plus any FOREX.

In summary, if you want a global presence to avoid the Foreign ATM fee, but a low $1.50 Foreign ATM fee to provide absolute flexibility when you really need cash, and a very competitive exchange rate, HSBC is hard to beat. Yeah, a few banks will rebate all or some Foreign ATM fees each month, but they have not been tested out and any savings might be eaten up by a mediocre exchange rate.

Since most travelers to western (or other countries with entrenched ATM networks) will want to charge as much as possible via CC, the typical traveler will really not need much cash. $500 might be enough cash for the whole vacation. Get it in one or two shots via ATM, and thats it. If you know you will need $10k of cash for a specific reason (e.g. buying diamonds in Jerusalem), then it might be worth someone's time to research more thoroughly. And in such a case, a bank wire is probably the safest, cheapest, and customary method to complete such a purchase.
=================================================

NYT Article

Message edited by: psychtobe on 2008-11-27 00:57:47 CST
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Thanks for the info,,,

I have been wanting to find out about this.

Are there any banks that dont charge an additional fee, leaving out the Mastercard/Visa fee ?

AMEX is good with only 2 % , but doen't have as high an acceptance abroad.

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This is a list of the cards which do charge additional fees. For possible ones that don't, check the links to older threads i have already posted.

I myself have used Fleet cards abroad, they used to not charge additonal fees. though I will NOT use them again due to atrocious customer service & my experience in contesting a charge (in summary, they found against me even though I had a signed receipt from the charger listing a different amount. even more d@mning, the vendor eventually responded to me much later & made good on the difference, claiming he was out of touch when i tried to contact him originally, and said that fleet didn't even try to contact him. though who knows if that was true, he may have only made good with me because he was associated with the university hosting the conferrence we were attending & I wrote him & said I was going to tell them what he did -- he got back to me right away then!) I will probalby use CapOne next time I travel, I think they are still 1%.

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The following don't charge an additional conversion fee beyond the built-in 1% from mc/visa:

Farm Bureau
MBNA
Fleet
most Credit Unions
Capital One ?

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thanks sloppy1

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we were in Mexico this past December and a $400 bill came out to $412 when charged on my AMEX.

A $191 bill came out to $185 with Visa. It generally depends upon the peso to dollar conversion rate which should have been based upon about 11 to 1, but AMEX seems to not give as favorable conversion rate, at least in this case.

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I know that MBNA-branded cards do not have a foreign currency surcharge. But the AAA 5% gas rebate card is not explicitly MBNA-branded.

Anyone care to share their experiences?

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Bump.

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Bump.

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CrankyOldGuy said:

<< Bump. >>

Enough with the bumps, OK? Whoops I just gave you another

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At my age, bumping is as good as it gets.

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are low conversion fees mean made up to visa/mc/issuing bank with poor fx rates?

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Bump

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sloppy1 said:

<< The following don't charge an additional conversion fee beyond the built-in 1% from mc/visa:

Farm Bureau
MBNA
Fleet
most Credit Unions
Capital One ?
>>

Add Principal Bank to this list. At least that's what 2 separate CSR's have told me.

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Instead of using credit cards, can you go to the foreign bank and exchange cash? Is that supposed to save you at least 1%?

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any cards that have no additional foreign currency fee that also have no cash advance fee?

MBNA quantum? capital one?

it would be great to have a CC that can be used to pull out currency at foreign ATMS with no fees

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SUCKISSTAPLES said:

<< any cards that have no additional foreign currency fee that also have no cash advance fee?

MBNA quantum? capital one?

it would be great to have a CC that can be used to pull out currency at foreign ATMS with no fees
>>

This was a subject of our discussion here last year. HSBC bank does that for their ATM card holders.

Also, this can only be discovered by trial and error and it is a popular discussion topic by expats in SE Asia: there are some banks that do cash advances and charge them to credit cards as purchases.

Message edited by: DWooley on 05/01/2004 22:48:32
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Capital One has no cash advance fee, at least my Capital One CC does not. ATM itself might tack on ~1E or whatever, and MC/VISA collects its 1% no matter what.

Message edited by: Alcibiades on 2004-08-06 11:19:55
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What if you use ATM card to purchase directly? I heard there is no charge from the bank, you only need to pay 1% for MC/VISA. What if you get cash directly from ATM? Other than the ATM fee, I suppose there is no 1% MC/VISA fee.

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