The Pentagon Federal Credit Union Platinum Rewards Visa Card offers 1.25% cash back. Witht the 1 % Visa charge, you net 1/4 percent profit. It worked just fine in Europe this August and September.

Anyone can join this credit union, one way or another. As a last resort, join the National Military Family Association.

Info and links on the Free Cards page (Cash Back Cards section) of the Credit Card section of my website below.

Capital One is the best choice because it currently charges no additional fees on foreign transactions and absorbs the 1% fee charged by Visa. Next best choice is usually a credit union card e.g. Pentagon Federal Credit Union which charges the 1%.

Hmm: 1% - 1.25% = ?

Merrill+ Visa issued by MBNA still does not add a foreign exchange fee, and there is no annual fee for the card.

October 5 transaction posted October 6: GBP 14.49 billed as USD 25.54 = USD 1.7626 per GBP. xrates.com shows these rates:

2005-10-05 Wednesday, October 5 1.7655 USD
2005-10-06 Thursday, October 6 1.7728 USD

dennis

cash advance v. purchases
 

you all need to draw a distinction between the purchase fees (well discussed above) and the outrageous transaction fees on cash advances

i was in taiwan last month and withdrew NT$3000 just as a test to see if it would work, (about $90US), as a cash advance on my AAdvantage-branded Master Card

i expected to pay a cash advance interest charge from the date of withdrawal, and was charged $0.71 (seventy-one US cents) on my statement

fine, no problem

i was also charged $10.US "minimum transaction fee"!!!!

so they were charging me more than 11% just to get the cash advance!!

i called and was told they do charge 3% of the amount advanced- i.e. had i taken $1000US it would have cost me $30- but that the minimum is $10

after complaining, they credited it back to me

my local bank in NY says i could have used my ATM card and only paid a small fee- like $1.50- for any size transaction

so i'll try that next time

beware of cash advance transaction fees on your credit cards

MBNA Fidelity Card
 

The Fidelity MBNA Mastercard (No annual fee, 1.5% cash rebate) didn't charge me any fees for purchases made last month. The foreign currency transactions converted at roughly the interbank rate; there were no fees in the finance charge portion of my statement.

Here are the details (I'm including the interbank rate from OandA.com on both the transaction date and the post date; I'm not sure which is used by MBNA:

19 Sept Charged GBP 20, converted to $36.03 or USD 1.8015/GBP. Interbank rate was 1.8086/1.8047
22 Sept Charged RUB 3,320, converted to $117.12 or RUB 28.34/USD. Interbank rate was 28.39/28.35
23 Sept Charged RUB 1,287, converted to $45.16 or RUB 28.49/USD. Interbank rate was 28.54/28.39
25 Sept Charged GBP 22.45, converted to $39.88 or USD 1.7763/GBP. Interbank rate was 1.7757/1.7716
25 Sept Charged GBP 15.8, converted to $27.98 or USD 1.7708/GBP. Interbank rate was 1.7757/1.7792

MBNA said they don't charge currency exchange fees, just as nyventurecapital said. MBNA's written terms and conditions also say no such fees, and that they use the interbank rate. My few foreign currency charges over the past couple of month indicate this is correct. Moreover, they will have to notice cardholders before imposing a charge, and MBNA said they list all such charges as a seperate line item on statements, so it will be easy to spot if they begin to tack on fees.

With 1.5% cash back from Fidelity, this is a 4.5% savings over cards like MP Visa and it seems a pretty good deal for those with hefty overseas purchases. Any thoughts from experts such as PGary?

what about relying on ATMs?
 

In the course of this thread about the costs when using CCs abroad, there has been only passing mention of ATMs when traveling. What about the costs associated with them, especially any variable ones based on the amount of local currency withdrawn?

I do not recall any notice of the per transaction fixed fees one routinely encounters here in the States (usually $1 or $2), and my own bank imposes no charges to my account for the use of other banks' ATMs, domestic or foreign. So where am I getting hit - unfavorable exchange rates between the local currency and the dollars coming out of my account?, fees that are buried in there?

I thought that if one wasn't uncomfortable drawing large sums of cash from ATMS while abroad and settling hotel and restaurant bills with cash, one could manage on $500 a day or whatever the limits for withdrawls from ATMs, and one didn't need the paper trail that credit cards give, then ATMs were a good way to go.

Why not more reliance on ATMs while abroad? What am I overlooking or unaware of?

If you use "Search this forum" for the term "ATM" you will see discussions of this issue in other threads...

http://flyertalk.com/forum/showthrea...&highlight=atm

http://flyertalk.com/forum/showthrea...&highlight=atm

...my own experience with a Visa check card was that a 2% fee was incorporated into the exchange rate.

dennis

I think ATMs weren't being discussed because they were slightly off-topic for the thread.

Having said that, in the last acquisition wave my bank instituted a $5 fee for international ATM use. This makes it possibly less attractive than credit cards, especially conssidering that my CapitalOne Mastercard has a 90-day grace period on top of no foreign use fee.

There are a number of banks that charge no fee for use of ATMs, and a few who give rebates for fees of other banks, and at least one that does all of these plus pays a good rate of interest on your money. If someone starts a thread specific to this question, I will respond to it.

The problem, of course, is where to post it. Do the moderators have guidance on this? ATMs are not credit cards, and thus discussion on them probably does not belong here.

If someone starts a thread, please send me a Private Message telling me where it is.

The conversation on that thread was about using ones credit cards to get local currency from ATMs while abroad. I am not interested in using credit cards to get local currency while abroad, but rather to use my ATM card for that purpose, drawing on what is on deposit in my checking or savings accounts back home.

It seems to me that while this thread and this forum are about credit cards, it is not wildly OT to discuss in a conversation about how banks stick it to us with their 3% vigorish for foreign exchange transactions whether ATMs cannot be used to avoid such charges. Getting local currency through ATMs while abroad has both obvious advantages and disadvantages (e.g., peril of carrying large amounts of cash on one's person, no paper trail for expenditures, no "float" for expenses, no bonus miles, etc.), but it is the possible hidden ones I wonder about.

So unless the moderator wants to bounce this to somewhere else (where?), I would like to hear why or why not on ATMs withdrawls from personal account for cash needs abroad (not ATM withdrawls with credit cards). Any "hidden" downsides, especially hidden or underappreciated costs that make it better to charge everything to credit cards even with 3% bank surcharges?

Re: the Fidelity MBNA Mastercard, I haven't been charged any foreign exchange fees either and the 1.5% rebate is passive, i.e. when you accrue $50 in rebates the $$ are automatically put into your brokerage account. You don't have to make a phone call to request a rebate, like on most Citi rebate cards.

Re: ATM withdrawals, I've used my credit union ATM card all over the world and have never been hit with any fees from my bank. That's a good enough reason to join a credit union right there. YMMV. ^

I don't have any accounts with a credit union, but I believe I am getting the same advantage from my own bank. And like you, I have never been hit with any fees when out of the country (USA) withdrawing local currency from a bank ATM.

So what are we missing, where are the banks putting it to us, why is this not clearly a superior way to go rather than letting credit card companies hit us with their 3% surcharges? Why, for example, not pull the local equivalent of $400 or whatever is needed to satisfy a hotel bill or pay the restaurant tab rather than give them my credit card and pay the credit card company and extra $12 (maybe $60 or more, depending on expenditures, for a 10 day stay outside the country)?

Here is a good site w/ foreign exchange percentages for mileage/points earning cards.

http://www.andrewcram.com/frequentflyerCC.html