Originally Posted by 925
I am charging a lot of stuff in non-US countries, and the foreign exchange fees are starting to become material, so my boss has asked me to reduce my credit card foreign exchange fees. My cards will likely exceed $100K in foreign charges (reimbursed business expenses) in the next 12-18 months.
I currently carry AmexSPGPlat and CitiAAdvantageMC. I always try the Amex, and fall back to Citi if they don't take Amex. I also have Chase CashBuilder, Chase PerfectCard, BritishAirwaysVisa(BankOne), and MBNA PlatinumPlus.
I am trying to get to AA Lifetime Plat, so I prefer AA miles (and LOVE the Amex/SPG flexibility to 20 airlines and the transfer bonuses). I also like cash. I am generally discouraged by all other programs either because they are too finicky (any private airline ticket program, for example), or on airlines I am not currently looking for award travel on, though BA/NW/UA/DL miles are tolerable.
Question: What card has the LOWEST foreign exchange fees (and hopefully either earns AA miles or cash rebates).
The associations charge 1% as a seperate line item. The banks can add a surcharge to this fee as per their contract. This amount can be from 0% to 5% for doing absolutely nothing. The result is that for a VI or MC you will pay between 1% & 6% for any foreign transactions. I did a little research and this is what I found out. Bank of America cards are all 3%, Chase cards are all 3%, HSBC is 2% eeck, American Express is 2%, Discover is 0% (but only good in North America), Nordstrom is 1%, most credit unions are 1%, Macys is 1%, Juniper Bank is 2%, US Bank is 3%, MBNA is 1% on some and 3% on others but will increase all cards to 3% as of April 2006, Capital One is 1%. I hope this information is of help to you.