Here’s a new angle to this. MC is apparently dropping its 1% foreign currency surcharge. Citibank has already announced that it will raise its own surcharge from 2% to 3% to grab the fee that used to go to MC. In phone call to MBNA, I was told that they have no plans to institute a 1% fee, or any other fee, on foreign charges. That means that the difference between MBNA and Citibank just went up to a full 3%, or 4.5% if you use MBNA’s Fidelity rebate card. It’s hard to see any justification for using a Citibank card abroad under these circumstances. Even if you want miles from a particular airline, there are much cheaper ways to get them.