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Credit card and Debit/ATM usage in europe

Credit card and Debit/ATM usage in europe

Old Feb 20th, 2006, 06:15 PM
  #21  
 
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>>The only way to really tell, however, is to do a transaction with our Visa card in Euros, and on the day it clears, record what Visa's exchange rate was - not the "mid-market rate" and see if it<<

If anyone is still listening. I realized that my too long sentence is a bit "fuzzy". The "it" I'm referring to is the resultant exchange rate (including all add-ons) that you will be able to calculate by comparing the dollars charged on your statement, to the Euros that you paid for the item/service.

>>the same as Visa's rate (therefore it includes Visa's 1%)<<

Stu Dudley
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Old Feb 20th, 2006, 06:41 PM
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xe's posted mid-market rates have nothing to do with ISA or bank charges.

Yesterday's EUR:USD rate on xe was 1.19451, so if I put in $1194.51 for $1000, the result is 0.000% markup.

Q.E.D.
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Old Feb 20th, 2006, 08:29 PM
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you're all going crazy here. this question wasn't that complicated, but it's turned into a mess! i appreciate all the insight, but i'm just simply asking....what credit card issuers are charging a fee and what arent? i can tell you since i called and asked Citi and Chase....that both charge 3%. Capital One charges 0%. I applied for a capital one card to take with me and cover any transactions i can take care of with a cc, this will reduce the amount of cash i need to withdraw, and give me optimum exchange rates. i'll still need a lot of cash, and i need to check with citibank to make sure i have options at banks in italy, but citibank gives me 5 free transactions at non citibank atm's per month. my credit union doesn't charge a fee at all. so i think i'm safer with my credit union. i'll probably leave cash in both accounts just to be safe. my problem is that i don't have a lot of disposable income in checking accounts, so i have limited cash resources
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Old Feb 21st, 2006, 07:30 AM
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From my CitiBank Disclosure statement:

1. For a normal CC purchase (dinner, for example), they charge an ADDITIONAL 3% of the purchase amount AFTER it's conversion to US Dollars. I intrepret the AFTER to be after Visa or MC has converted it to dollars and tacked on thier 1%. This is wnat many "posters" have claimed when they contacted their card issuers. Conclusion - use your Capital One card which does not have the 3% added on.

2. For cash advances, "we add an additional finance charge of 3% of the amount of the cash advance, but not less than $5". As I recall, these finance charges start accruing when you make the cash withdrawl, which is not the same procedure as assessing finance charges to normal purchases. "Finance charges" and currency conversion fees" are different animals. The Visa 1% + the CitiBank 3% also apply for international transactions. Conclusion - use your ATM Debit Card, which may be your credit union card.

We spend 2 months in Europoe every year. My wife is also a 20 year employee of Visa Corp. I use my Morgan Stanley brokerage Master Card (wouldn't give us a Visa card), which only has the 1% MC charge added in. If I rent a car from AutoEurope in the US, or any agency that can charge me in dollars, I pay the entire amount in advance in dollars, and use my City Bank card, so I can get the FF mileage on AA and no currency conversion fees.

Stu Dudley
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Old Feb 21st, 2006, 07:44 AM
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Okay, wait a minute. Do we agree that the xe.com/ccc computes fees based on a straight mid-market rate (with no ISA)? I thought my demonstration at 10:41 last night proved that.

If so, then you should be able to run a transaction from your Morgan Stanley card and see only the ISA (i.e., it won't be "buried" in the conversion amount).
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Old Feb 21st, 2006, 08:33 AM
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>>Okay, wait a minute. Do we agree that the xe.com/ccc computes fees based on a straight mid-market rate (with no ISA)? I thought my demonstration at 10:41 last night proved that.<<

Yes, we agree

>>If so, then you should be able to run a transaction from your Morgan Stanley card and see only the ISA (i.e., it won't be "buried" in the conversion amount).<<

I believe if I simulate an actual transaction using xe.com, it will show NO extra fees - not even the 1% ISA that Morgan Stanly says that I should see (passed on from Visa).

What I actually did, was I input a Euro Purchase of 1,000E and a "CC statement amount" of $1,192.03 (this is what I think would be the actual statement amount if this were a real transaction & not a simulation) - and the added fees were very close to zero (they were actually negative)

Where I think where we are "mixing things up" is that Visa DOES NOT USE the "mid-market rate" to convert the currency - they use something else. In the past, my wife has said that Visa is so large, that they are actual traders themselves sometimes. I assume that my MC is the same. I'm also assuming that xe.com does not have access to the actual rate Visa uses - so therefore they use the mid-market rate as a default for their calculation. I have concluded this by comparing the rate of 1.19203 that Visa states is their converson for 2/20 WITH the 1% ISA added in, to the oanda.com rate (is this the mid-market rate? - I'm assuming, again, that it is, or close to it) of 1.1938. These rates are about the same, except that Visa includes the added 1% conversion fee & the latter does not.

Therefore, if I actually make a deposit on a hotel in France for 1,000E with my Morgan Stanley which runs through Visa (not xe.com), I will be charged $1192.03. If I simulate the same transaction through xe.com I will show zero added-on fees. The confusion, I believe, is that Visa uses a conversion rate that is 1% lower than xe.com, so it appears (incorrectly) that the simulated transactions are missing the 1% Visa ISA.

Unfortunatly, Visa's site does not show historical conversion rates, so we can't run an actual transaction through a xe.com simulation & compare the two.

This is getting to seem like real work....I thought I retired 6 years ago!!

Stu Dudley

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Old Feb 21st, 2006, 09:07 AM
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I don't think "Visa's rate" includes the ISA but is 1% lower than the market. The one Visa debit card I have that does pass through the ISA breaks it out as a separate line item debit.

And a transaction from that bank shows 0% if I run the charge line item by itself through xe.
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Old Feb 21st, 2006, 09:51 AM
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>>I don't think "Visa's rate" includes the ISA<<

I'm pretty sure it does. Like I said, my wife works for Visa - but not in an area where she would be invloved with ISA. She does, however, kow who does what to the transaction, and what the bank can or can't do (they can do almost anything, including "eating" the ISA). She also knows the "jargon" and how Visa usually words things. Visa is very careful about what they say on web sites, disclosures, etc. They have been sued several times about ambiguous statements.

The converson display on the web site allows you to input add-on percents in the BANK FEE box. Zero is a possibility, but I did not try a negative %. Note that no mention of ISA is made in this optional input box - Visa is very clear is differentiating between ISA and Bank Fees if you click on the "more info" line.

They then present a conversion "schedule", and a little scissor icon to suggest that you cut it out and put it in your wallet. This, I assume, is the "final" converson that a shopper can use to see how much 300 Euros will cost in Dollars. If there was an additional 1% added to this when the shopper received their statment - they would probably cause trouble.

Wording has to be read very carefully so that the reader understands what the Bank/issuer does and what Visa does. Sometimes Banks keep it vague by design, I believe, so that it seems like they are charging less.

Stu Dudley
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Old Feb 22nd, 2006, 12:25 PM
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what about AMEX traveler check cards? I know the original poster does not like that but I'm considering doing that for my europe trip....
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Old Feb 22nd, 2006, 12:30 PM
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dont get travellers checks!
Just use the atm..its worth paying a small fee to not have to worry about gettting travellers checks.
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Old Feb 22nd, 2006, 12:48 PM
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I just ran two transactions from last September through xe.com/ccc

One was on my Schwab card. It showed 0%.

The other was my bank card. It was 1%.
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Old Feb 22nd, 2006, 01:08 PM
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well I just found out my bank (Chase)does not work for me...they told me they would charge me $3.00 and then a 3.5% conversion fee to withdaw money from my account on my atm card....I mean seriously that's just ridiculous. I think tomorrow I will open an account with a credit union just for that!
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Old Feb 22nd, 2006, 02:55 PM
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Good for you! The more of us who refuse to submit to this near-criminal practice, the better the competition will get.

p.s. If your bank charges for ATM withdrawals from the bank next door, find another bank. We can put a stop to this.
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Old Feb 22nd, 2006, 05:28 PM
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I just returned from Switzerland and was not charged a fee when I withdrew cash using my Wachovia Visa debit card at the ATM machine. I agree with Robespierre. Pay for everything in cash from the ATM. You get the best exchange rate this way, as well.

Capital One had the lowest fee, if you plan on traveling internationally again.
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