PETERPNYC

Does anyone know if the FC Fee counts towards the $5k spend on the Chase ink bold. Also the same question on the Amex SPG. I am scrambling to meet those two spends here in greece and want to get to $5K exactly

Redhead

Generally fees such as annual fees and FX fees do NOT count towards spend requirements

sdsearch

No, and that's the problem with getting to a threshold amount "exactly" while outside the country (where the card was issued). It's hard to even know if the "pending transactions" included the fee or not, so it's pretty impossible to hit a spend threshold "exactly" (you have to overshoot to be sure).

For this very reason, when I went out of the country for 2 weeks while trying to meet spend thresholds on two Citi AA cards I had applied for a couple weeks ealier, I didn't use either of those cards a single time outside the country. I just used a 0% FT card I had. It might have theoretically made it easier to mee the thresholds had I used the Cit cards on that trip, but it would have it mipossible to easily tell whether I had met the thresholds!

And in my experience, depending on the bank, maybe even on the speciific card, forex fees, whlie they show up fairly clearly on a statement once your statement prints, are impossible to figure out in "account activity since your last statement"; they may or may not be included in the dollar conversions of foriegn currency purchases (I've seen it both ways, but can't remember where).

Happy

Only eligible purchases count towards meeting spending threshold. It is plain and simple.

Even without reading the Ts and Cs, common sense would tell you Fees of any kind, do not count as they are NOT PURCHASES.

When any normally "does not count" items are countable, the Ts and Cs would spell out the abnormality - most commonly it is the Balance Transfer, but only the amount transferred and NOT includes the often 3% fee.

It is amazing that such question would come up every now and then - does Annual Fee counts? Does Forex Fee counts?

What those who ask, should ask this: Do Fees equal to Purchases? The answer is so obvious that I could not believe anyone could have to ask further.

Happy

This should not be an issue if you keep track of your spending - you would know the ballpark unless you have the peculiar intention not to spend a dime more than your threshold (that would be a totally different topic). The forex fee does not show up until statement closes in the case of Citicards, so what you see is what you have spent, until statement closes, the forex fee shows up as the last entry before statement cut off.

Ragnarok

This issue wasn't as clear as one would think now.

Before the class action lawsuit regarding foreign transaction fees was settled, the card issuers just marked up the exchange rate to include a foreign transaction fee.

A foreign transaction was posted as one single entry on the statement, with the amount already marked up.

In this case, I would think that the final USD amount as shown on the statement should be counted as the "purchase amount" for rewards calculation purpose.

Of course, nowadays the issuer listed the foreign transaction fees out as fees, and often specify in the T&C that fees are financial charges and are not included for any award calculations.