Tony, "ouch"

"There's a reason for that, if you've ever tried taking secateurs to a quiche."

In most garden centres, the quiches on sale in their "all cooked at home" restaurants can only be eaten with their very sharpest secateurs. Some even need a Large Power Gear Anvil Loper (currently on offer at a mere £36.98 down our local B&Q)

IMD...ah ha the cynic. Actually, the interbank rate at any particular moment is available at several places; I use xe.com. The interbank rate is the "official" rate but not really government set but rather set by market conditions. It is the rate banks use between themselves when trading millions and millions of whatevers for other currencies.

Now having said that, there are several banks in the USA that advertise no foreign transaction fee (it's a transaction fee but not a currency exchange fee as they charge the fees even on dcc transactions). I use several myself and guess what. They are not lying. The transaction come through at the exact xe.com rate at the moment of exchange. They are not burying anything Every bank has its own policy and sometimes it's hard to pin down. Most banks I'm aware of do charge a 1% fee on ATM withdrawals above interbank rates. Some do have fee free policies. Some even rebate fees charged by banks for having the audacity to use thir machines although that is usually not done on transaction out of te country a la cirrus and plus rules.

Personally, my travelling pattern is NEVER to use cash for anything no matter how small. In some countries, that works well. In the UK, for example, I can spend a week in the London area and never spend a red cent (or penny) in cash and trust me, I don't go to top of the line places. But that's London; it might be different if I spent a week in Berlin.

But to get back. I have found that at least in the USA, those banks that advertise no foreign transaction fee, do not mislead and the exchange rates are about the best you can get totally in line with the interbank rates.

How can something that is "basically useless" still be taken to a bank and exchanged for currency or is everybody who did that above lying about it?

Let me add just one quick thing. I understand laws are different in other countries and I am really only knowledgeable about US law on these matters. The US banks seveal years ago lost a law suit (a class action law suit where the lawyers cleaned up and the peasants got pennies but that's our tort system here). The suit involved disclosure of fees on credit card foreign currency purchases. The US banks used to bury fees for credit card purchases in the exchange rates. Under the terms of this law suit, the banks must show the exchange rate used on the statements and the fees listed separately. Some banks list the total fees for a billing cycle at the end. Others list them transaction by transaction. Thus when USAA says they charge a 1% foreign transaction fee on credit card purchases above interbank rate, you can see indeed they are telling the truth as on each transaction, you see the 1% fee (in actuality, they don't charge a fee, they simply pass along the mc or visa 1% fee). Some banks that say there is no fee well you can see the exchange rate jives with the interbank rate. In those cases, the bank is eating the 1% mc/visa fee. Most of the larger banks in the USA on many of their credit card accounts, the non premium ones usually which don't have an annual fee, claim to charge 3% of which 1% is the mc/visa pass along and the other 2% if there to line their pockets. Now that's what's true in the USA. How other countries handle these fees, is probably different.

I too like to use a credit card whenever possible, because the cc companies buy such huge amount of currencies, the exchange rate is favorable but you always need cash.