Originally Posted by
jamar
As an aside, some issuers still do this. My Simple debit card didn't separately break out the 1% they pass on from Visa when I used it to buy a high-speed rail ticket in Taiwan (apparently my EasyCard would've been fine for non-reserved seating but I wanted a reserved seat and Taoyuan to Taipei isn't really all that much). Neither, apparently, does my Barclaycard Ring- I never see a separate foreign transaction fee for any of my international transactions.
Oh, I wasn't commenting about getting the reserved vs. non-reserved ticket. We always do reserved too, but in a pinch you can use the EasyCard if you don't want to wait for the next train. Even then the cadence is at most every 30 minutes, so you're not waiting too long. The Taiwan HSR stations are well equipped and not a bad place to spend some time getting a bite to eat. ^
I really thought all banks break out the 1% now? I guess that's not the case. I know that Fidelity stopped charging it because I compare a foreign withdrawal to the Visa exchange rate on the posting date of the transaction, and it matches exactly.