xyz, by the way, most of those credit cards are 2% more, not 3% more, as they ALL include the first 1% for conversion. And I'm curious if you would also say this statement is moronic?

"It costs me an extra $200 on $10,000 worth of vacation costs to use my AA Citibank Card in Europe, but those extra 10,000 miles will make it possible next summer for me to get another free round trip business class ticket to Europe -- a $12,000 value. I don't mind paying the extra $200 to be able to go Business Class next summer rather than stay home."

Patrick...

No I'm not calling that statement moronic...it has been estimated the cost of an airline mile is about 1 cent so you are paying a trifle more for the miles and that's okay...you're getting something for the 2% being charged so I should have amended the statement and I certainly stand corrected....

But if you're not getting airline mileage or other reward points and you care to toss away 2 cents on every dollar, you won't convince me it is not moronic!

The estimate of a mile being 1 cent is way off for me. I use 90,000 miles most years to get a business class ticket including two stopovers that would cost an absolute minimum of $8,800 anyway I've tried to compare them. My ticket last summer I couldn't find a comparison of for less than $12,000. We could argue all day about whether or not I'd actually buy that ticket, but that is its actual value, which comes out to a minimum of
9 cents per mile in value.


I'm not talking about people who cash in 25,000 miles to get a domestic ticket that with a little searching they could buy for $250.00. That's a whole different issue.

But yes, xyz, I'd have to agree that if you weren't getting SOMETHING for your money it probably would be pretty silly not to get a credit card that didn't charge extra if you are charging a lot in Europe.

Sue..

I looked at the web site and on the photo of the terminal, it clearly says to the person operating the terminal, did you ask the customer to do the charge in a different currency.

So the merchants who claimed they had to write the charge up in USD were liars.