I just talked with an MBNA Visa Card rep via the AAA toll free line and the gentleman I spoke with affirmed that MBNA in April will begin charging a 2% markup for foreign charges.

Does anyone know if Capital One is going to do the same thing?

If Capital One is following the industry trend, does anybody know where one can obtain a credit card that is not "marked up"?

Fleet Boston maybe??

Looks like we are fighting a losing battle as the consumer.

no, they are not because I just talked to them last week and brought this up due to all the talk on here. As of now, they have no plans to do so and they do not add over the MC/Visa one pct.

The MBNA guy you talked to was wrong. the AAA Visa does NOT have the markup. I have spoken to both MBNA/AAA and they verified that AAA is exempt. The problem is a bunch of staff at MBNA don't know what they are talking about. They first told me AAA would get the markup also but then I was cut off when being transferred to someone for me to complain, and when I called back, a different guy said the first guy was wrong, AAA was not getting it. He said it was "difficult" for them to all "understand" because this was all new to them and they were having trouble getting the staff up-to-speed. Why this is so difficult, I don't understand. YOu have to go out of your way to ask the right questions with MBNA -- ask them if there is a special list of affinity groups that aren't getting the increase, and ask them to check it to see if your AAA Visa is on it. Then see what they say when you tell them to look at the right list.

Basically, you didn't get any notice in the mail from MBNA did you? If so, then you probably are, but if they only told you this when you called and asked them, I bet the person you spoke to is wrong or didn't think outside the box, as they say. Someone in AAA finances called me personally to tell me they were not getting the increase on the AAA Visa as I wrote and asked them, also. If you didn't tell the guy what card you had, though, they wouldn't have known you were in an exempt group.

oh, my first sentence was referring to Capital ONe -- I have both a Capital One MC and a AAA Visa, and neither add over the basic one pct.

Totally disgusted with the major credit card issuers, I started looking at local credit unions to see what they offer. I found that nearly all the ones I checked don't add additional fees for foriegn transactions - and the interest rates were very low if you don't pay it off every month.

Just today I joined a local CU and applied for their Visa Platinum card.

You might want to see if there is a local CU you can join. I did a google search for 'credit union Michigan' and it pulled up all kinds of them.

There is a local credit union and I am eligible to join.

I haven't dealt with a credit union in many years, but I recall that, as a small institution, they didn't provide the 24/7 service that you can get with some banks. I don't know if that is still common, but it is something I would check into before committing to their services. If you are in Europe or Asia when there is a problem with your credit card, calling someone who is only their during normal hours, eastern time, for example, could be an inconvenience.

If someone has current information on this, I would be interested in hearing it. I know some credit unions are now quite large, or perhaps the services can be provided by the credit card companies.