Hi All,

I found out that both of my credit cards (Amex and AT&T Mastercard) charge fees (or markups) for use while travelling overseas. AT&T charges 3% or $5 per transactions, whichever is greater. Amex charges a 2% markup.

When did this happen? Is it new? Maybe this was always the case, and I just never noticed? I always thought that using a credit card overseas was the best deal you could get.

I have to check with Wells Fargo - maybe I should just use ATMs to get cash while travelling.

What do y'all do? Is there a credit card that doesn't charge these fees?

- Thanx!
- Jon

I use a Chase Visa card, and they've started charging fees like this as well. Chase similarly tacks on fees for international ATM usage from my Chase checking account. I don't do enough international travel that I've felt particularly motivated to find an alternative vendor, but my bank's fees for this, and other things, are starting to get to the point that I'm motivated to look elsewhere.

I keep all my retirement stuff with Fidelity. They're more than happy to act just like a bank account, with direct deposit, checks, ATM (with fee reimbursement), and the only major missing thing being a linked credit card. (You can get a Fidelity-branded MBNA card, but Quicken downloads would appear to require paying yet another fee.) I haven't asked them about their international fees.

Most annoying: I was travelling and there were no nearby Chase branches. I found a Washington Mutual, since they always had free ATMs, right? Wrong! Not only did WaMu charge me a $2 fee, but Chase charged me another $1.50 on top of that!

On top of all that, Chase seems to be working to engineer as much friction into the system as possible. Example 1: Chase's non-deterministic holds on large deposits. You can deposit a big check. It will show up in your bank balance when you check online. You can then try to do a transfer or something, and only then will you discover they decided to put a hold on your deposit (in other words, you end up bouncing checks if you're not careful). Example 2: Chase's new bill payment scheme. They used to just use CheckFree. You write an online check. Maybe a paper copy is printed, or maybe an electronic transaction happens. Whatever, but the money stays in your account until the other side actually deposits the check. Not any more. With the new system, they take the money out of your account first, then print the check, and you may or may not find out whether the other party deposited it. (In one case, they didn't and I didn't know for two months.)

Needless to say, I'm open to taking all of my Chase business elsewhere. The only reason I haven't bailed is that they've got an ATM in the student center, which is fantastically convenient for common-case transactions.

Not good. Just found this...

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2005-04-21-card-fees_x.htm

and

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/perso...05/overview.htm

and some promising info here:

http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/cc/20050624b1.asp

DWallach - MBNA is listed there...

- Jon

Great news - Capital One confirmed what is on that web site. For purchases made in local currency, they DO offer "Zero percent. Capital One does not charge a fee and absorbs the fee charged by Visa and Mastercard"

They also have the "Capital One No Hassle CashSM Rewards" which "Earn 2% cash back on gas and groceries; 1% on other purchases"

Sweet!

- Thanx
- Jon

I wasn't charged any fees when I used my credit union ATM/Debit/Credit card in Europe. ATM withdraws were converted at the days currency exchange, and charges worked the same. The card my bank gives me carries a Visa logo, not sure if that has anything to do with it or not. I tend more to believe it's the general nature of the credit union though, since they also do things like reimburse ATM fees to make up for the lack of credit union ATM machines.

I don't get charged actual fees on my Australian Citibank Visa directly, but I'm quite certain the exchange rate I get charged is a couple of percent off (in the wrong way of course) the real rate. It's very hard to tell though since they just say xxx in foreign currency equals yyy Australian pesos.

This extra charge for currency conversion happened between 7/2004 and 7/2005. I remember seeing it in the fine print of all my credit cards' "policy updates" before my second trip to Amersfoort. I should update all my travel books which say "credit card is the cheapest way to pay overseas."

Then, I found nearly every place in NL and DE wanted cash, so I just had to risk carrying that on me at all times. Worked a treat, as they say.

I used my Wells Fargo card for Amersfoort this year, and there were conversion charges....great to know about Capital one, though!