thnarf

I always pay the fee at international hotels in the local currency. On a few recent stays in France, I have found the Euro rate, when converted to dollars on my billing statement to always be cheaper than the USD rate that the hotel offers upon checkout.

Brendan

That's because many overseas merchants &or processing banks got the bright idea in the early 2000s to grab a 3--4% fee for themselves instead of letting the card issuer grab it! So some banks such as Citibank changed from a Foreign Conversion Fee to a Foreign Transaction Fee, so un-savvy customers got dinged TWICE!
It's only the cardholders of the no-forex-fee cards such as Chase & CapOne who really benefit from refusing to let a European bank do the euros to dollars conversion.

BTW, I'm glad to know that Marriott GCs now convert fee-free. I remember posting that possibility as an "IF..." a few years ago when it sounded like a fairy tale to some FTers !

dayone

+1.

Counsellor

I agree they benefit, but in my experience agreeing to DCC usually costs more than allowing the charge to go through normally.

- If you have one of those cards that charges a foreign use fee (some do -- it doesn't matter what currency the charge is in, just where it is made), the DCC is a double hit instead of a single hit.

- Same for the "no foreign currency conversion fee" cards -- the DC is a single hit instead of no hit.

- And almost always the conversion fee charged by the DCC provider is higher than the one charged by the credit card company.

I suppose it's possible in the case of a charge in a remote area in a very volitile currency would benefit from DCC by setting a firm conversion rate, but that could go either way -- essentially it's currency speculation, a different game entirely.