Originally Posted by
LETTERBOY
For some people, it may actually be a big deal. There are people who don't share your views regarding FTFs. They may be in the minority (at least on this board), but they exist.
Furthermore, if the banks thought FTFs were costing them money, they'd disappear rather quickly. Since there are still a lot of cards that have FTFs, we can reasonably conclude that FTFs are not costing the banks a significant amount of money.
Indeed? I bet there are people out there who just love paying an unnecessary extra 3% for purchases processed outside the USA. I mean you buy 4 Aer Lingus tickets for $900 each and use your mastercard (or visa) to pay for it with the ftf. You'll just love getting your bill with an extra $108 fee; especially when no bank can explain or give any justification for this fee. Where did I say banks were not making money on the ftf? Of course it was originally mean to be a conversion fee where visa/mc did the actual conversion and asumed whatever minimum risk of a large shift in foreign currency rates between the time of a charge and the time it was processed but quickly discovered what a nice cash cow and how stupid some people are who continue to use credit cards with this asinine (and it is asinine) fee. Nobody should be using a credit card with a ftf outside the USA when there are so many alternatives available which don't charge the fee except maybe you can show where the rewards are worth more than the fees. True enough if you use your Chase Freedom card for the airline tickets above, you get nicked for $108 but those nice people at Chase rebate you $1.08. Some trade off, eh