jbcarioca

Another thing to keep in mind is that most credit card exchange rates are better than you would get with cash or travelers checques even when you add on FX charges from the banks, when they have them.

spgaston

I usually try to use cash from ATM machines when I am overseas because my credit union only charges the 1% Visa/MC exchange fee and nothing else, but I thought I had discovered a cheaper method with CapitalOne.

jbcarioca

The CapitalOne card is still subject to the MC/Visa charges, posts to the contrary notwithstanding.

inY

CapitalOne claims to charge no foreign transaction fee, including the 1% levied by MC/Visa: "Capital One has made the business decision not to pass on this Foreign Transaction Charge to our customers."

Also, hi FlyerTalk.

84fiero

Yes I saw that - 18 months ago doesn't seem recent to me, but to each his own. Just not clear how one purchase and a few comments to an online article necessarily substantiate the thread title that CapOne is sneaking in extra fee.

Anyway some of these questions have been hashed out in the latter posts of this thread, btw, which may be useful to check out as some "field tests" of different cards' rates have been done.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...hange-128.html

chelmkamp

Please explain. As far as I can tell, not even the usual 1% Visa network fee is being charged on on CapOne cards, even in a 'hidden' way. Transactions generally differ from published rates only by about .25%.

jbcarioca

I show here only Visa, but MC has a closely analogous process. Please note that this is cleverly constructed to avoid admitting that these are foreign exchange fees, so the banks can say they have none. Some of this income is retained as profit by Visa, some rebated to issuing and/or acquiring banks.

1) The rate Visa makes available to issuing banks may vary from the rate Visa itself receives. As the document below discloses Visa charges may not reflect Visa costs. They stop short of directly admitting that they make money on this. In fact these rates are prospective, established each day for the following days transactions, so Visa allows itself a healthy margin for that risk. This process is disclosed in Visa/issuer/acquirer contracts and in the quote below.

2) In one of the more creative ways to avoid admitting reality the second quote below includes the following: Visa Inc. does not assess any fees to cardholders or merchants. "Visa applies International Service Assessment (ISA) fees ranging from 0.15 to 1 percent to its financial institution partners for their use of the global payment system." Because they were prohibited from charging a direct FX fee they do not do that now, they charge an assessment instead for use of their network. Clever way to avoid admitting their FX extra charges of 1% on normal retail, declining to .15% fro some corporate and debit transactions.

http://usa.visa.com/personal/using_v...rates_faq.html

"How does Visa calculate its rate?
Every day—except weekends, Memorial Day, Christmas Day and New Year's Day—Visa calculates the rate for the next day's transactions. The Visa rate is selected from a range of rates available in wholesale currency markets or the government-mandated rate in effect one day prior to the applicable central processing date. Visa makes this rate available to issuing banks, which may adjust the rate when billing cardholders by applying a foreign transaction fee. The rate Visa makes available to issuing banks may vary from the rate Visa itself receives. consumers find that using Visa is a convenient and cost-effective way to make purchases and obtain cash when traveling internationally."

"What is Visa’s fee structure for international transactions?
Visa Inc. does not assess any fees to cardholders or merchants. Visa applies International Service Assessment (ISA) fees ranging from 0.15 to 1 percent to its financial institution partners for their use of the global payment system."

aschuett

I opened a Capital One Money Market Savings account online a little more than a year ago. It comes with an ATM card (not a debit card - can't use at retailers) that I have used overseas many times. Not only do I earn a little interest, but I get no fee currency conversion. They don't charge any fees for withdrawals in terms of per transaction fee, or conversion percentage. It uses Visa's Plus network of ATMs, so I'm set in most places. If you sign up, check the T&C to make sure nothing has changed!

Link to Money Market Information:
http://www.capitalone.com/directbank...arket-account/

ATM Locator for PLUS network:
http://visa.via.infonow.net/locator/global/

Happy

I am curious about the monthly limit on withdrawals imposing on Money Market / Saving account by the Fed regulations. (Reg D if I recall it correctly). So as the online transfers whether it is inside Cap One or to outside banks, they are subject to 6 times a month limitation.

So any ATM withdrawal (not just the "home bank's ATM" as Capital One has none mostly) would be exempt from the monthly limit count? (ATM transactions are unlimited).

I have both the MM Saving as well as the Online Checking which earns about the same interest as the MM Saving, but checking account has no limitation in withdrawal/transfer.

aschuett

From the FAQ at Capital One:
I think this answers what you're asking, right? I've never used a Capital One ATM (where exactly are they? ;-)) and I have done at least 7 transactions in a month at foreign ATMs. Keep in mind that foreign ATMs show money in their foreign currency (at least all the ones I have seen), and you don't know exactly what the exchange rate is, so you kind of have to "guess" how much you can take out. There are a bunch of ATMs though, so I've never had to worry about it.

In regards to ATM fees, I know nobody has brought it up before, but I've always used ATMs at the banks in Europe and never been charged by the owning bank. I've heard other ATMs can and will charge, but never bank ATMs in Europe.

Happy

My experience with Fidelity's ATM card is, if the withdrawal exceeds your daily limit (Fido uses Fifththird bank for our account and Fifththird has $500 a day limit also), the ATM would decline your withdrawal. Happened to me once when I tried to get $400 Euro when Euro was at 1.5x to USD. Changed it to 300 Euro the ATM spit out the cash. I had to pay a 6 days x 100 euro a day apartment rental in Barcelona in cash, and had to withdraw the needed Euro in 2 days.

Schwab's card has $2000 daily limit and the rep has told me he could raise it to $4000 if I need it.

I have not seen ATM fee in Europe either.

mahasamatman

http://maps.capitalone.com/locator/
I had that one, too, but I opened a checking account because (a) it earns the same interest rate, and (b) they refund ATM fees charged by the provider for this account, but not for the Money Market savings account.

gnaget

I opened a Capital One bank account last year in case something happened to my regular local bank that was put under OTS watch in 2010. This local bank used to offer interbank rate cash via ATM with no fees. I checked versus Oanda several times and it was correct. However, just after the OTS watch announcement they implemented a 1% fee that shows up as two line items in your bank statement.

Cap One checking had a $2 fee so was better if you took out more than $200. But I got an email about "high yield checking" and changed my account to that, and one benefit was no ATM fees. It was a bit vague about international. They told me that they still charge the $2 (even though it says "no ATM fees anywhere") but then credit back up to $15 in fees at the end of the month.

However on my first statement I had two intl ATMs. No fees and no credit/debit of fees. In reality I don't think they charge any fees on their side.

In any case, I recommend Cap One High Yield if you want a checking with no ATM fees internationally. It's also useful that they credit up to $15 if you travel in the US.

curiouskitty

Wow. I am shocked at the huge discrepancy. Yet another currency conversion difference we need to worry about while traveling

smooth

I have BofA Visa card serving as a replacement for my old Schwab Visa. BofA representative confirmed today that there is no foreign exchange fee for my card.
A few days ago I used BofA Visa and my regular AmEx card to pre-pay for (2) upcoming hotel stays in Europe. Both transactions went through on the same date, both were converted from Euro to Dollar, and the amount was about the same for both hotel stays. The official interbank currency exchange rate on that date did not fluctuate much (I checked).
When I compared monthly statements from both companies the difference between AmEx exchange rate and BofA Visa was 3.2%, in AmEx favor. Even after accounting for a transaction fee of 2.7% on AmEx card it still gave me a better conversion than BofA Visa without foreign transaction fee.
Is it normal? Can anybody confirm that BofA Visa has such a dismal foreign currency conversion rate? Is this a case of a hidden foreign exchange fee of 3.2% ?