Originally Posted by
HHonorsRepresentative
Hotels using Elavon as a provider:
- Upon checkout you should be prompted to choose which currency you wish your card to be charged in; a conversion rate will be provided to display the rate and the amount that will be charged in your local currency.
- Elavon offers currency conversion at a low exchange fee, and no further conversion fees should be charged from the cardholder’s issuing bank.
Great to see the information about what should be happening.
However, I assume the segment above is just Elavon marketing, which happens to be untrue. The exchange fee I received was 5%, which could never be described as low, given that every credit card issuer I'm aware of charges between zero and 3%. Also, they have no control over what an issuing bank does. Some banks charge a foreign transaction fee on every foreign transaction, regardless of currency. (e.g. Banks such as HSBC and ANZ in Australia would charge a further 3% fee on top of the 5% that Elavon charges, for a total of 8.15% of the original cost.)