Claim for Refund of Foreign Currency Conversion Fees
Dec 4, 2007 | 4:32 pm
#16
Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: Dallas, TX US
Programs: AA EXP, 3MM, CO Gold, Delta Gold, HH Diamond, Marriott Platinum, SPG Platinum, PC Gold, HZ Pres Cir
Posts: 123
Hmmm
I'm trying to maximize my return, while minimizing my amount of work spent. I have estimated my days out of the country, and it's over 600, but I've been with 4 different companies, and let's just say around 10 different cards. So, I don't want to do option 3.
I look at 2, and it asks my travel purpose. I would say this is close to 50% business, 50% vacation. What do you think these questiions mean? The choices are Biz, Visit friends, vacation, or other, and the selections range from never to mostly (and you can click all of them mostly, it's real intuitive, one would think mostly would = 1 choice.)
My guess is that if you click business, they will assume a coporate card, and disallow a large chunk. If you select visit friends, they might assume you do not incur a hotel charge, and have a reduced per diem, again just a guess...
ANy insight into the use here?
I look at 2, and it asks my travel purpose. I would say this is close to 50% business, 50% vacation. What do you think these questiions mean? The choices are Biz, Visit friends, vacation, or other, and the selections range from never to mostly (and you can click all of them mostly, it's real intuitive, one would think mostly would = 1 choice.)
My guess is that if you click business, they will assume a coporate card, and disallow a large chunk. If you select visit friends, they might assume you do not incur a hotel charge, and have a reduced per diem, again just a guess...
ANy insight into the use here?
Dec 4, 2007 | 7:06 pm
#17
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: ORD, MKE
Programs: UA, Hyatt and regular member of everything else
Posts: 1,531
I registered for this before and entered the amount of transactions by year already. I received a notice today that says that I don't have to do anything and option 3 will already be taken for me. Anyone else get that?
Dec 5, 2007 | 8:34 pm
#19
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Pennsylvania
Programs: HHonors Silver
Posts: 4,029
Option 2 is pretty easy to do by looking at entry/exit stamps on your passports. In 15 minutes I was able to determine that I'd been out of country about 163 days during the effective period (not much by some standards, but could reasonably net me a few hundred dollars). I selected "mostly" for vacation and "often" for business.
Unless you are choosing Option 3 you don't have to make any statement or claim regarding what card, if any, was used for charging or ATM withdrawals.
Unless you are choosing Option 3 you don't have to make any statement or claim regarding what card, if any, was used for charging or ATM withdrawals.
Dec 6, 2007 | 10:08 pm
#20
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Land of King Richard the Second (Chicago)
Programs: UA 1P
Posts: 730
I want to know the same thing. I'm tempted to do option 3 as I have every charge in Quicken over the last 12 years. It would be MUCH higher value if I'm allowed to do atm withdrawls
Dec 6, 2007 | 11:30 pm
#21
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Purgatory
Programs: Too many to list. Status is a half dozen.
Posts: 9,236
SETTLEMENT DAMAGES CLASS: all Persons who or which were holders of
United States-issued MasterCard- or Visa-branded Credit or Debit Cards or
United States-issued Diners Club-branded Credit Cards and made a Foreign
Transaction from February 1, 1996 to the date of Preliminary Approval; and
SETTLEMENT INJUNCTIVE CLASS: All Persons who or which were holders
of United States-issued MasterCard- or Visa-branded Credit or Debit Cards or
United States-issued Diners Club-branded Credit Cards as of the date of
Preliminary Approval.
United States-issued MasterCard- or Visa-branded Credit or Debit Cards or
United States-issued Diners Club-branded Credit Cards and made a Foreign
Transaction from February 1, 1996 to the date of Preliminary Approval; and
SETTLEMENT INJUNCTIVE CLASS: All Persons who or which were holders
of United States-issued MasterCard- or Visa-branded Credit or Debit Cards or
United States-issued Diners Club-branded Credit Cards as of the date of
Preliminary Approval.
Dec 6, 2007 | 11:36 pm
#22
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Itinerant
Programs: DL FO, AA PLT, BD *G
Posts: 423
Cirrus and Plus are owned by MC and Visa, respectively. (Maestro is also owned by MC but I don't know if they are on any US cards.) The back of my MC debit card has a Cirrus logo on it. So I'd be very surprised if the settlement didn't include ATM withdrawals using pure ATM cards.
Dec 7, 2007 | 12:22 am
#23
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Purgatory
Programs: Too many to list. Status is a half dozen.
Posts: 9,236
I disagree, but then I can't say for certainty either direction and thus for no one else has so we've not really gotten anywhere.
Cirrus and Plus are not Mastercard and Visa branding by my personal interpretation.
Cirrus and Plus are not Mastercard and Visa branding by my personal interpretation.
Dec 7, 2007 | 10:06 am
#24
Join Date: Feb 2007
Programs: United 1K, Delta Platinum, LY Maybe:)
Posts: 162
I'm pretty curious about this whole thing. I would expect at least 10% of the population in the US to have used a CC abroad in the last 10 years. That's $30M ppl. $300M divided to $30 is about $10/person. Assuming 1/3 of the people don't respond, that would be $15 a person. Still, with this offer it seems that the least people will get (unless dumb) is $25. Which one of my assumptions is off?
Dec 7, 2007 | 12:41 pm
#25
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Itinerant
Programs: DL FO, AA PLT, BD *G
Posts: 423
I'm pretty curious about this whole thing. I would expect at least 10% of the population in the US to have used a CC abroad in the last 10 years. That's $30M ppl. $300M divided to $30 is about $10/person. Assuming 1/3 of the people don't respond, that would be $15 a person. Still, with this offer it seems that the least people will get (unless dumb) is $25. Which one of my assumptions is off?
Dec 7, 2007 | 12:57 pm
#26
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Land of King Richard the Second (Chicago)
Programs: UA 1P
Posts: 730
I got my form in the mail. The first paragraph says the following
So I can include my ATM transactions on all of my trips. I travel fairly cheaply so I'm curious if I'm better off doing option 2 to go with the average
The fees were based on foeign transactions, including both purcahes and ATM withrawls, from February 1, 1996 to November 8, 2006
Dec 7, 2007 | 1:10 pm
#27
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Land of King Richard the Second (Chicago)
Programs: UA 1P
Posts: 730
I did the math and ended up deciding the slightly greater return from Option 2 was not worth the trouble of providing a bunch of active credit card numbers to an unknown server. So I opted for Option 1 and provided a single account number which was used for foreign transactions and has since been closed. Whatever information you choose to provide will likely live on in perpetuity on some server somewhere. And any breaches of the server will likely take a while to be reported to affected individuals. It's just not worth it to me.
Dec 7, 2007 | 7:11 pm
#28
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: DFW
Programs: AA EP 3MM, UA Silver, Bonvoy LT TIT, Hyatt Explorist, HH Silver, Caesars PLT
Posts: 7,259
This seems like a real waste from the point of view of the consumer. The procedure In terms of finding records to get a refund does not seem worth it to me, which seems really unfair to consumers. How is anyone supposed to realistically be expected to have charge records going back to 1996? Even for more recent records, it would seem that for most people, the time necessary for determining the amounts would not be worth the expected return.
Dec 7, 2007 | 7:55 pm
#29
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Nov 1999
Programs: FB PLT again afater a decade as plebian
Posts: 22,940
I've kept my AT&T Visa though I left the U.S. (non U.S. citizen/resident) in the middle of 1997 and have only spent a maximum of a total of 3 months in the U.S. since, so I can put int some 3,500 days under Option 2. On Option 3, I probably could claim at least $1k a year. Which would be better?
FWIW, my card number just got changed due to some fraud prevention move so I'm comfortable providing a defunct Visa account.
FWIW, my card number just got changed due to some fraud prevention move so I'm comfortable providing a defunct Visa account.
Dec 8, 2007 | 7:30 am
#30
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Pennsylvania
Programs: HHonors Silver
Posts: 4,029
Where did you have to enter an account number for Option 1 or Option 2? On my form only Option 3 asked for account numbers. The online form bounces if you miss an entry so I know I gave them every thing they were asking for.