I don't doubt that eventually all MBNA cards will carry the 3% foreign surcharge, but I was told by an MBNA CSR last night that the surcharge is being implemented on an account-based level. Not sure if she was correct (she sounded like she knew what she was talking about after promptly answering a couple of questions I fired at her correctly--I knew the answers to those questions before I asked because I wanted to test her knowledge of the policy), she told me my account was one of the few not affected by the new surcharge. In fact, she said this new surcharge is a test to see how the market responds. I think if enough affected customers call in to cancel their cards or stop using their cards overseas because of the surcharge, MBNA may back off of this experiment. Quite honestly, the only reason I use my MBNA card is because of its no additional overseas surcharge. If that benefit goes away, so goes my business with MBNA.

LAX