Originally Posted by themicah

The answer to your first question is generally yes. If a card says no fee, the issuer isn't charging a fee and Visa/MC/Amex aren't charging a network fee either. There were some class action lawsuits a few years ago that effectively put an end to the hidden fees/markups.

That said, not all card issuers use the same forex rates. My understanding is that Visa/MC do the conversion for some card issuers, but other issuers do the conversion themselves. Based on my own tests and tests done by friends of mine (e.g., taking out 100 euros from the same ATM using 3-4 different no-FTF ATM cards within a minute or two of each other, or splitting up a hotel bill in three equal parts spread across three different credit cards), it would seem Citi is one that falls in the latter category, and on average gets slightly better forex rates than the standard Visa/MC conversion rates used by other issuers (Schwab, CapOne, PenFed). But our data sample is pretty limited, and YMMV. At the end of the day, it's very unlikely that any one card issuer is going to have more than a 1% better rate on average, so as long as you have a no-FTF card, you're probably in fine shape.