minimum spend - includes foreign transaction fees?
 

If someone has a $3,000 minimum spend (in order to get a miles/points bonus) on a credit card and they spent $2,900 on regular purchases and paid $100 in foreign transaction fees, have they met the spend…or are the foreign transaction fees considered to be something other than purchases (and therefore do not count as part of the minimum spend)?

Why not read the terms and conditions you received from your (unnamed) credit card issuer to ascertain the answer to your question?

The T&C state "Miles may be earned on purchases made by primary and employee card members". Not clear if the transaction fee is considered to be a part of the purchase. Will call the card issuer (but often each agent spoken to gives a slightly different answer), but also wanted to hear of others' experiences with this.

Transaction fees are usually excluded from minimum spend requirements.

Not sure why you won't say which card it is. But in any case, keep reading - somewhere in the T&Cs it usually defines how they define "purchases". Though in my experience, fees of any sort are usually not counted as a purchase for that purpose.

If in doubt and if for some reason the T&Cs are unclear, just assume the fees don't count - which again, is a safe bet.

Citi, the card issuer, has informed me that "foreign transaction fees will not earn miles or count towards your spending requirement for the bonus miles".

...and neither will interest payments and cash advances.

Thanks for following up and informing us.

That's usually the case, AFAIK.

it's minimum PURCHASES, not minimum SPEND
 

Only the actual amounts of (net) purchases count, nothing else!!!

Everyone makes the mistake of calling it "minimum spend", and that's what gets them into trouble.

I've never seen a promo that actually uses the term "minimum spend". It always spells it out as "make $XXXX in purchases within YYY time" (or similar wording). "Purchases" should not be ambiguous, but "spend' is more ambiguous, so by rephrasing the promo from "minimum purchases" to "minimum spend", and then thinking of it as "spend" rather than as "purchases", that's what IMHO leads to this erroneous thinking of things other than "purchases" counting in the "spend", which would never occur if people called it "minimum purchases".

(You may "spend" your money on paying fees, you may "spend" your money on paying interest, but it should very clear that you don't "purchase" fees and you don't "purchase" interest.)