forgot to mention that the last 3 phone calls, when the agent said he/she would transfer me to another agent, each time I said "can you transfer me so that I won't have to wait 15 minutes on hold?" and each time they said "yes, it will only be two or three minutes", and then it was 10-20 minutes. By the last call I was only asking for my own amusement.

A friend of mine has a theory that the only reason CapOne doesn't charge forex fees is that they are too incompetent to implement the change.

Given my own experiences with their customer service (20+ minute call to try to add my wife to my account, then no card shows up in the mail), I'd say that theory may hold water.

Anyway, I still use them when I go overseas as my main card. Luckily I haven't needed customer service (and I carry backup cards with fees just in case).

When leaving SJO last week, I used my Crap1 to pay the Exit Tax the actual charge was 26.23 while it was 26 in cash, factor in the 1 1/4 rebate and it was 25.90. Was short on cash.

Surprise Surprise was that Crap1 hit me for a $5 fee for a cash advance, seems that the Tax is paid is collected by a Bank and therefore got picked up as a Cash Advance.

However once I finally got thru to a CSR and explained that I paid the Exit Tax and there wasnt a sign tellling me that a Bank was handling everything and that no money was exchanged or changed hands, she issued me a refund for the $5 fee^

So as bad as they may be its still my #1 CC when traveling outside the US, as long as they dont start Ripping us with the Forex fees. With the charges are in US$ (of which I had 2 in SJO) I use my SPG Amex as most CCs will add a Forex fee even thou the charge is US$ if its outside the US

When this happens I always say to introduce me directly to an agent by name so I don't have to be on hold. They usually say they are not capabable of doing that, so I say well that is not a satisfactory answer to me the customer and ask them to put me on hold while they figure out how they can answer my request -- I then usually get a supervisor surprisingly.

Somebody posted some new details about Citi ATM card fees effective January '08 over at the wiki.

Does anybody know anything about these changes? What accounts do they apply to? Is the 2% in addition to the Visa/MC 1% or inclusive of it? Did anybody here post this information?

If nobody knows about this, I'm going to revert the change. If somebody hears something about changes to Citi's overseas ATM rules, please let me know.

And as a reminder, when editing the wiki, please use your flyertalk username so I can contact you if your edits are unclear or unconfirmed.

I remember others posting about the Citibank change but I never received any official notice. I just rechecked all my online statements for any legal notice insert and again came up with nada. Too lazy to call so waiting to see if does indeed happen. Will just use my Everbank debit card if the Citibank change proves to be true.

I have a Citi E-Saving and free checking account. The notice for that change came in my October e-statement. The change is supposed to take effect on 1/16/2008.

Per the notice it will apply to my e-saving and free checking account. The total is 3%.

Poor experience with Cap1 fraud department
 

I have to chime in here. Horrible experience for most of my trips abroad using my Cap1 No Hassle Rewards card. I always called their fraud department 1 week before I left to inform them my travel plan. For the first trip everything worked fine until they declined a USD100 train ticket. For the 2nd trip they sent me a warning email in the 3rd day saying they suspected some fraud charges and asked me to call. Nevertheless all the transactions were legit and they eventually went through.

I am now in my 3rd trip and this turns out to be my worst experience with Cap1. As always I called the automated travel number and several days later I called their fraud dept. to make sure my request went thru and everything was alright. Was assured so. On the 2nd day of my trip my card was locked. They asked me to call them to verify some minor charges which I did. When I asked why this happened, they said they had no way to control the system even though my account already had a travel override. Asked if they would manually examine such locks and they said they didn't know. After the CSR has unlocked my card I asked if this would happen again, and she said she couldn't promise anything as "this can happen again in the next day or so....."

What's so good about no forex fees if my card is constantly locked. And I am not travelling to places that are notorious for credit card frauds!

I also heard that some people got screwed by calling collect to their credit card companies from abroad. Is this true?

Your experiences mirror mine. I never call Cap1 CSRs, I only deal with the fraud people since they're usually in North America and plugged-in, though not always.

You're right-there's no value in a no fee card that you can't use. "No Hassle" my eye. After a couple of years of high for-ex fees from most credit card companies, maybe we're due for one to break out and offer a no fee card. When that happens, I'll dump Capital One in a heartbeak. In the meantime, I'll keep my card more due to momentum than any other factor. However another decline or two for peanuts charges will push me over the top.

Speaking of Cap One, how do you like getting those blank balance transfer checks in the mail every few weeks?

capital one
 

My first experience with Capital One: I just got back from an overseas trip and all of my capital one charges were at the exchange rate. It was my first time using the card so I asked what the protocol was for using the card out of the US. They provided a 1-800 number that you call at least 3 biz days before your trip to tag your card for foreign charges. Of course, I can't find the number right now but my trip went without a hitch. It sounds like you registered your card and called the fraud dept. What a joke if they can't get their systems working properly.

increasing credit line
 

One last note: i wanted a higher credit line so called to request this with customer disservice. They state that one cannot request an additional credit increase, that they periodically review the account and do it automatically. Such a joke. So my wife applied for her own capital one card and got a much higher credit line which worked well on our trip. Each time I called, I was on hold forever. How can a company like this retain customers?

I was told the advance time is four days, but it seemed to be a new, efficient procedure, and the CSR who told me about it identified himself by first and last name and gave me a a case number, all without prompting. I had to ask him if this was really Capital One. We'll see how this procedure works.

As a reminder, our wiki (which summarizes this thread) does list some CapOne alternatives:

http://flyerguide.com/wiki/index.php...reign_Exchange

In the last year or so a few banks have come out with high-end cards that don't impose forex fees. Cards such as Citi's new Chairman card (the new amex version, not the old mc version), HSBC's Premier World MC and Wells Fargo's Signature Visa cards are all forex fee-free and should have good customer service. I think all of these require pretty significant banking relationships, however, and some have hefty annual fees.

Commerce Bank (of NJ) also offers a credit card with no forex fee (http://bank.commerceonline.com/perso...PlatinumCC.cfm) and has an above-average customer service reputation. Some in this thread have reported that the bank is reluctant to issue cards to people who don't live near a Commerce branch, however, and right now they're only in a few east coast markets (http://bank.commerceonline.com/infor...ours/index.cfm).

Commerce also was recently acquired by TD Banknorth, so it'll be interesting to see if TD decides to adopt Commerce's customer-friendly model (which has been quite successful) or if they force Commerce into TD's more typically fee-laden retail banking model.