Originally Posted by
godlovesugly
My SPG card highlights foreign purchases and separates out the fees. Are you saying there is an additional fee built-in?
What I've done is when I was in Europe about a couple of weeks ago I made two different puchases on the same day and paid for one with my FIA AmEx and for the other with CapitalOne Visa (both cards don't have formal foreign exchange fees) and when transaction posted compared X-rates used. The one used by AmEx was about 1% worse. And I know that this 1% comes directly from the following language in my FIA AmEx CC agreement "American Express (1) converts charges made in foreign currencies to U.S. dollars using a rate selected on the business day prior to the day on which the charges are processed by American Express and (2) applies a 1% commission to the converted amount."
Note that it says "American Express converts", not "FIA card services converts".
On the same time X-rates used by Chase OnePass MC (that has a 3% FT fee) before that fee was substantially the same as the one used by a no-FT CapitalOne Visa.
So in my case AmEx did "hide" 1% into X-rate, but it did it in full agreement with my CC agreement.
As far as SPG AmEx goes - its T&C language is somewhat vague so I cannot answer your question but I suggest that someone who has this card and a Visa card experiments in the same way - makes separate purchase on two cards at the same day and compare X-rates used before FT fee comes into consideration.