Originally Posted by
Majuki
If you're US based, use Schwab or Fidelity. They don't charge their own fees, currency conversion fees, and reimburse ATM operator fees. Just be sure to opt out of any DCC offers. Otherwise, some banks here charge a $5 international ATM access fee, 3% conversion fees, and pass on whatever ATM operator fees one gets charged. Quite an expensive way to get money overseas and might even make currency exchanges at the airport competitive by comparison!
Thanks for the helpful tips. Thankfully I only had to withdraw cash once; 150/180THB is an awfully high fee for a single ATM transaction.
On a related note, I wrote about what seems to be Norwegian's own version of DCC: bad exchange rate in excess of 25% more than market rate for bookings in USD versus NOK, applicable to all cards (not just Visa/MC), and payment currency is tied to language choice (difficult to opt-out). And only the US language version of the site is exempt from the 1.99% credit card surcharge (unless you want to use a debit card). Read more here:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/other...norwegian.html
Maybe someone in this thread cares more about the issue; I didn't get much of a response in the "other European airlines" forum. This is the most egregious example of overcharging related to currency choice I've ever seen. How can we make them stop doing this?