Originally Posted by
JEFFJAGUAR
I'm very confused and don't know what information is correct or what. If a bank says there is no fireign transaction fee, that means to me they are eating the 1% visa/mc fee. Under the rules of the settlement of that suit, banks must sort out and list the exchange rate being charged on credit card (not debit card and not Amex, it app.ies only to mc and visa to the best of my knowledge) separately. Now, for example, USAA advertises it passes along the 1% visa/mc fee and on their statement, if something purchased in London is converted to say $10.00 US it will list under the transaction the 1% fee (10¢). I use the BA 1-2-3 card, the successor to the Schwab card and they advertise no foreign transaction fee on these grandfathered cards and I don't see any fees listed, which the settlement of that law suit requires so I believe they eat the 1% visa/mc fee as well or they are in violation of the settlement of that law suit.
FIA processes my Fidelity Amex and since that lawsuit only applied to mc and visa, I don't see any listing of fees even though they do state they pass along the 1% visa/mc fee. I would have to use the Amex card at a very close time to the visa card to make sense of it. But to me no ftf means they eat the 1% fee which they would be required to show on a mc/visa purchase!
Not true at all.
If you SM Chase on their no forex fee cards, they ALWAYS tell you Visa would charge 1% Network fee - Look, it is not called Forex fee, but "Network" fee.
FIA amex card specifically tells you there would be 1% process fee for transactions ORIGINATED outside US. Personally I have other cards carry 0% forex fee and earn at least 1%, so no reason to even bring the FIA amex with me on trips.
BTW, since it is NOT called "forex" fee, the 1% is BUILT IN the exchange rate, NOT a separate line item as stipulated by the legislation.
You can ban your head against the wall on this but will NEVER get a clear-cut answer. My take is, this is how the banks get away from charging the 1% and have no need to list it separately.
This also applies to the Fido and Schwab ATM cards. When the banks charge the 1% separately on the withdrawal slip, Fido would NOT reimburse it. I have the experience with BNP at Aix-en-Provence, where the BNP has 1 euro listed as "purchase" on a 100 euro withdrawal. Fido said that was the 1% Visa Network fee and would not be reimbursed.
I use the same BofA 123. I also carry other cards from Chase / Citi / CapOne that have 0% forex fee. More often than not, I found the 1% Visa fee is more like 0.5% or less. No reason to spend lots of time and energy to just "figure it out". Just treats it as a very tiny increase of your total trip cost and be done with it.