Yes, indeed, Jeff, that was a great explanation! I get so angry I just foam at the mouth and sputter.<BR><BR>I have both MBNA and Citibank, but don't use the Citibank card abroad. The fact that they can just sneak this fee in (it's not delineated on your bill and I don't even think it's in their fine print) is reprehensible. It's like ATT charging 11% for a 7% federal universal service charge. 1/3 of my local phone bill consists of such fees--what is that? But it is so convoluted that the consumer just gives up.<BR><BR>Curiously enough, I don't think we have ever been charged an ATM fee until last year, and even that was only at certain places. Wonder how you can find out who is going to charge the fee?

right on Jeff. Good words of advice.<BR><BR>I do have a question. When the extra 2% is taken from you, how is it done?<BR>Is there a line item on your credit card statement saying we clipped you 2%, or is the 2% charge slipped in on the exchange rate???? <BR><BR>I have not actually paid the extra 2% yet, and hope I never will. So not knowing from experience, will someone please clue me in??<BR><BR>I have both a Wachovia Card and a Bank of America card. About 12 months ago, BOA started the sneaky practice of charging an extra 2% conversion fee for non US dollar transactions ago. <BR><BR>When I went to Europe last year, I used my Wachovia card exclusively because it did not clip me the extra 2%. Now Wachovia has added the 2% charge.<BR><BR>So now I am getting a card through AAA.<BR>They tell me that there is no extra 2%.<BR>Comments above bear out this assertion.<BR><BR>Getting clipped on currency conversion is an old game, time honored. <BR>As a student, with courses in international finance and international trade on my transcript, several of us who were traveling together around Europe used to play games with the exchange rates. If we could save the price of a beer each, it was worth it.<BR>We had more time than brains and more brains than money. <BR><BR>There was always a buy rate and a sell rate, but it was different from bank to bank or exchange joint to exchange joint. So when we went from one country to the next, we would fan out to different banks in the area and check out the exchange rates.<BR>Then we would pool our money and buy at the best rate. <BR><BR>One day riding a train, we figured up how many exchanges it would take to reduce $100 to $5.00!!<BR>The idea being that on paper you would go to the exchange window where the rates were exorbitant and convert the $100 to local currency. Then you would go to another widow and convert the foreign currency back to dollars. <BR><BR>The idea was to see how few times on paper you could make a round trip (dollars to local; local back to dollars) and still have $5.00 left over. At 8% shrinkage per round trip, it did not take long!! Like 9 or fewer.)<BR><BR>It was a fun game and as students intersted in foreign trade we learned a lot quickly. <BR><BR>The interesting thing we found at the time was that the percentage of the commission was not consistent going and coming. In other words, if you were charged 4% conversion fee exchanging dollars to currency x, you were not necessarily charged 4% going from x to dollars.<BR>It all depended on the demand for dollars at that time. If the banks were not anxious to part with their dollars, the rate to buy them was well up there!! And the rate to buy them was more in your favor.<BR><BR>We also figured out that the best way to exchange was to talk some guy wanting currency X into doing business with us at the wholesale rate. We both made money!! For example, if we were in Germany and were going to Switzerland, we needed Swiss Francs. If some guy came up with Swiss Francs wanting DM we could do business. <BR>Each had what the other wanted and the price was right, and an impromptu market sprang into being. It was easier to do at a train station where there is a lot of noise and confusion anyhow. Banks did not like the idea of impromptu foreign currency exchanges taking place in the lobby.

Bob, I've always suspected it, but now I know you are nuts! (and from long date) ;-)<BR><BR>You never see the 1%, the extra 2% or a conversion rate; you just see what the price was in Euros and then what your CC is charging you in dollars. I read somewhere here that you can find a history of the exchange rate for each day so you can see what you should have been charged, but I'm not sure that would be accurate, since that is the big money rate. Once I charged something with each card on the same day, but I've forgotten what I learned. I'll try the same experience next trip. (Maybe I'm nuts, too!)

Hah! I found some charges in June, 2000. Same day, MBNA exchange rate 6.90; Citibank exchange rate 6.73, so it looks to me as if Citibank is charging an extra 2.5%.<BR><BR>Bob, don't be too sure you have never been charged because you can't tell by just looking. I didn't know until I read an article somewhere. Citibank shore didn't announce it!

You're right that you could never expect to get the 'official' rate but what you should be being charged on a CC is the official rate plus 1 per cent. A difference of greater than (official rate plus 1 per cent) is generally a gouge. (of course, it gets tricky because you have to know the official rate on the day MC/Visa actually clears the given transaction. But, it's generally pretty close to the rate you'd find on the day of departure.)<BR><BR>I don't know what my CC rate is at the moment but I do know that for a cheque rate (not the cash rate) they charge 3 per cent for a Euro conversion, or 2 per cent more than what MC/Visa charges them for a conversion.<BR>

I think some of you are a little slow to get the message. I know what I am doing when it comes to exchange rates.<BR>The point of the paper exchange game was not to give money away, it was to understand just what a battering your money takes when you exchange frequently between foreign currencies.<BR><BR>How do I know I was not clipped by the banks on my credit card bills? Because of two facts: <BR>1. I had my charge bills in the local currency.<BR>2. I knew the local exchange rate into dollars for that day. <BR><BR>So, I wrote down what the dollar cost should be for each charge slip as I went. When I got home I looked at my Visa bill and compared it with my notes. The deviation between what I figured and what I was actually charged was somewhere in the 2nd or 3rd decimal place. Usually it was a function of daily currency price fluctions. <BR><BR> You may not be aware of it, but exchange rates fluctuate during market hours just like the stock market, only the daily percentage swing is not nearly as great. You don't usually get a 2% swing in the value of the dollar against the euro in one day whereas daily swings in stock market indices of more than 1% are common.<BR><BR>Like today, you got any idea what the swing in the value of the euro was against the dollar?? Doubt it.<BR>It was +.65%. <BR><BR>As for being nuts, since when was earning or saving money nuts? <BR>With 5 or 6 of us traveling together, and exchanging quite a bit of money even for college students, we could save or earn about $20-30 for the group by what we did. Question: if you saw $30 lying on the sidewalk would you take the time to pick it up? My guess is you would. Or am I wrong??<BR><BR>And am I to presume that you did nothing to learn about your major field of study outside of the classroom when you were a college student? <BR><BR>Given the syllogism advanced here, when pursued logically, crazy people pick up money, and by inference sane ones let it lie there. But somehow, I don't think this little logic game holds water. <BR><BR>Our method was much more reliable than walking around the streets of Paris or Geneva or Munich looking for money lying on the sidewalk!!<BR><BR>Besides, being an international economics and foreign trade major, at the time, it was my business to understand exchange rates. And I think our games mastered the subject. We certainly learned to convert from Austrian schillings to Italian lira to Swiss francs, to French francs to German marks in a big hurry.<BR>At that time we used to question all of these currency deals and predicted even then that someday one currency would be used in western Europe. It certainly took long enough. Like a lot of ideas, it made too much sense. And vested interests were against it. (You ever wonder just how much banks make off of currency exchange!! It ain't chicken feed, I can guarantee you that.<BR>And that game goes back before the time of Christ. Anybody remember the episode with the money changers in the temple?) <BR><BR>At least what we did was more informative than talking about women's clothes.<BR><BR>

Bob, have you read that article by an astronomer who says that the universe may not be indefinitely expanding but may, in fact, be dying? <BR><BR>I'll bet you never once looked up into the nighttime sky and considered this possibility, did you? Admit it! You didn't!

Bob, Bob, I was just kidding! And thanks for the tip of writing down the exchange rate each day (if I can just remember to do it). I also noticed the daily fluctuations in exchange rates of charges posted the same day. But I must admit, high finance is beyond me. More power to you!

I have an AT&T Universal Card. The last time I checked on this (November), AT&T was charging a 3% fee for using the card outside the USA.<BR>

Sue,<BR>There is really no need to write down the exchange rate during the trip. You can look up historical exchange rate after the fact. I am sure there are several sources, I use this one:<BR><BR>http://pacific.commerce.ubc.ca/xr/data.html<BR><BR>Although there are many options, all I input are date range of interest, base currency (since it is a Canadian site, the base is Canadian by default), then target currency (Euro, probably).<BR><BR>After studying the rate I eventually got hit with, I noticed that ATM exchange rate appears to be real time while CC exchange take place many hours or even a day later. So while ATM rate matches closely to the official rate, the CC exchange lags the transaction date.

Thanks, Greg, that's way cool. My CC also lists post date, which I assume is also the date the charge is converted?

Bob.<BR>I have a AAA Visa card issued through FirstUSA on a recent trip to Belize a charge that should have been $150.00 per the exchange rate that day came through at $155.89. A charge that should have been $29.75 came through at $30.92. In Mexico a charge of $28.50 came through as $29.64. so yes my AAA Visa does charge somthing extra. These charges were just made 3 weeks ago.<BR>Victoria