Originally Posted by Gardyloo
...snip... plus currency conversion charges if any (not a problem for us if billed in USD, 3 or 4% if converted), ..snip...
Did you really mean that? It's still not too difficult to find banks who don't surcharge above the Visa/MC 1%, and the ones who are so kind to their customers on that matter turn out to be very nice to deal with on most other issues as well. Two choices are AFBA and CapitalOne.