Originally Posted by
philwupdx
Absence of a foreign exchange fee won't help much if a magnetic strip card isn't accepted overseas, and this is increasingly common.
Just curious: where have you been recently where a merchant refused to handswipe a mag-stripe card? On a trip through Austria, Cyprus, and France last summer, I had no difficulty using my US-based cards at any store/car rental/restaurant. (The lone exception was the stupid chip/PIN-only vending machine at CDG for train tickets, which I fortunately knew about in advance.)