It's true -- and more!

It's not just the "new" Gift Cards, even applies to old ones, and Travel Cards and Vacation Cards as well.

What has happened is that they're posting charges to them (new and old) in a different way. They used to be treated as stored-value VISA cards and processed thrugh the VISA system, which attracted a foreign exchange fee. Now they are processed through a different system ("Givex" as I recall) that uses the bank rate for conversions and does not add a currency conversion fee.