nikleb

I am looking to get a CC for international travel:
- no foreign transaction fee
- good exchange rates
- possibly no ATM fees

I tend to prefer cards with no annual fee, there are exceptions.

I do travel mostly UA (gold for live), don't think UA domestic lounge card is useful to me.

What cards should I look at?

patrick.barnes

Best exchange rates are provided on 0% FTF MasterCards.

Unfortunately that doesn't help you with United. But Visa "0% FTF" is usually no more than 1% higher than the equivalent MC rate.

Not sure why you want to use a CC in an ATM...

Look at Schwab, Fidelity, First Republic, Chase CPC, or some credit unions for 0% FTF ATM withdrawals.

nick5000

Are MasterCard rates really better than visa ? When I've checked I have not been able to confirm a pattern.

HGHUA

Yeah, I've found MC are better than visa's rates.

nick5000

I checked 5 consecutive days for USD - CNY, and found that visa was better of 3 out of the five. Is there any bigger comparison with several currencies over say a month that demonstrates a pattern?

rajuabju

Capital One. I have a Cap1 card specifically for international travel only.

nikleb

Is that the VentureOne From Capital One?
I believe there are two. One with $0 annual fee and one for $59 - difference being getting a bit more miles. (with 2x miles it would be better than United's)

Hawaiian717

VentureOne has no annual fee and earns 1.25 miles per dollar. Venture has the annual fee and earns 2 points per dollar.

The other thing to consider for international travel is chip support. More and more cards are rolling out with chips, but nearly all are chip and signature, and only some support PIN as a backup cardholder verification method. Capital One cards support only signature.

nikleb

Good point regarding chip support, I want to make sure that I can use a gas station 24/7 in Europe.

Also, reading up on the Venture, their miles are not transferable and I believe valued only at 50%?

Is the Chase a better option?

Hawaiian717

Venture points are redeemable for travel (either booking thru them or as a purchase eraser for previous travel purchases at 1 cent per dollar. So are gift card purchases and donations. Statement credit, check by mail, or purchase eraser for non-travel purchases are .5 cents per dollar.

For your 24/7 gas stations, you'll want to have a card with offline PIN support. Here's a list of what I've been able to track down of no foreign transaction fee cards with offline PIN support. https://www.spotterswiki.com/emv/car...e%5B%5D=credit

Your best bet from a large issuer would be BarclayCard Arrival+ or HawaiianMiles MasterCard, or AAdvantage Aviator Red/Silver if you converted from the US Airways Dividend Miles MasterCard (Barclay's can't take new applications for AAdvantage cards). But all of these have an annual fee. You might look at the credit union cards, some of them you can join an association which makes you eligible to join that credit union.

I can't compare rewards, but from the chip side, Chase is no better than Capital One since neither bank supports PIN.

exoticfusion

I use my CSP card a lot, but I also have the Charles Schwab debit card (it's chipped) I use for gas. You can also use the card to draw out money in the country you're in, like a debit card because it is a debit card. Schwab calls it a High Yield Checking account and it comes with a free brokerage account (which I don't use). The cool thing is, there's no foreign transaction fee as long as you use an ATM with the interlink logo and if for some reason the ATM does charge, you get what they charge you back at the end of your statement.

I called Chase to see if they will be offering chip and pin soon, they said they're working on it, maybe toward the end of the year.

Also, don't ever use your CC for getting cash back (you'll get charged for a cash advance), unless you're in a really desperate situation.

Yeah, CSP has an annual fee, but for the benefits (they are huge to me) and the 1:1 transferability, I think it's well worth it. I use to be against annual credit card fees and didn't understand why people got those, but I understand now. When you really think about it, you're paying only 7.91 bucks a month for the CSP. Hell I piss off 95 bucks a year on stuff I probably don't even need. That's my justification of the annual fee for me, but it may not be enough justification for you. At the end of the day, do what works for you and your needs.

FallenPlat

To be really clear, there are three unrelated points here:

First, a no FTF credit card. All the above is correct so far as I can tell. There are a lot of no FTF cards, the Capital One being one of the most common with zero annual fee.

Second, a no FTF ATM card. Obviously a credit card here makes no sense. I use my Citi Gold-or-higher ATM card. Schwab and a few others work, too.

Third, the chip issue. Hawaiian717 said it all. I've got my soon-to-come Barclays Red teed up for this. (I'm not sure the info about Wells Fargo in the link is right, though; the Red is closed to new applications and I believe (?) the Diners Club cards are likewise closed.)

patrick.barnes

My Arrival+ and Citi AA Exec give better rates than my CSP and SF Fire CU Visas. I've posted a comparison previously but can't find it with the mobile site.

I think this is mostly due to the way the FX rate is applied. MC applies the interbank rate at transaction time while Visa applies whatever rate is posted on their site when the transaction posts.

You can win on Visa... Maybe. But not in my experience (mostly AUD and EUR spend).

Unfortunately I don't know of any ATM cards that are MasterCards, otherwise I'd be all over it.

FallenPlat

The Citi Gold and the Citi Private ATM cards are both MasterCard debit cards and don't have any FX fees at all.

That's the good news. The bad news is that the ATM exchange rate is still one or two percent off the interbank (card) rate. Put differently, when you withdraw money these cards act like an ATM card, not a MasterCard debit card.

I actually ran comparisons when in Europe this past Spring. My Barclay US Airways MasterCard gave me a 105 rate for our big hotel bill; charges on the other days were pretty low as well. Conversely, each of the three ATM withdrawals I did was higher by a couple of points or so than regular credit card charges on the same day.

patrick.barnes

Thanks for the data point. I presume you didn't have a similar Visa ATM card for comparison?

Does Citi reimburse ATM fees at Gold level? Wonder if it's worth moving from Chase CPC.