Credit Card Transaction Fee in Europe

I just got back from France and Italy. I had used my American Express and Fidelity Visa credit cards extensively. I am surprised to see a foreign transaction fee for every single time I used the Visa card for a purchase. Everytime I used the Visa card I was charge this fee based on how much I spent. Is this normal - the Visa card representative said it is a normal charge. American Express did not charge this fee everytime I used their card.

Anyone else with a similar experience using their United States credit card in Europe?

Thanks,

Vein

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Visa and Mastercard both charge 1% on all transactions made in currencies other than dollars. I cannot comment with assuringly on American Express but I assume their costs are similar.

Many banks add fees of their own to international transactions, very few do not.

If you are charging large sums, these fees add up and can be sizable. It may be advantageous to find a bank that does not add unnecessary expense to your international travel costs.

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Thanks for the information. I wished had known this before because I did make several large purchases. I would have just paid cash to avoid all these fees and for the large purchases used a personal check.

I was using my credit cards becuase I was under the assumption that they gave the best exchange rates euros to dollars.

Hope others can benefit from this information for their travels.

Vein

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%26gt;I was using my credit cards becuase I was under the assumption that they gave the best exchange rates euros to dollars.

They do give you the best exchange rates.

Correction to Sarastro%26#39;s comment: :

AMEX charges 3%

USBank VISA and MC charge up to 2.5%

Citibank VISA and MC charge 3%

Many credit unions charge only 1%

This last Monday 14 May, my credit union issued credit card was getting me euros at $1.359 + 1% conversion fee. AMEX typically hides their 3% conversion fee in their final charges. Divide by 1.03 and you%26#39;ll recover that ~$1.36 number.

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%26quot;I would have just paid cash to avoid all these fees and for the large purchases used a personal check.%26quot;

You would have argues yourself blue in the face trying to get a French business to accept a cheque drawn on a US bank. If they HAD accepted the cheque, they would have added between 5 and 10% to cover processing costs.

That 1% fee may seem a lot - but the exchange rate was probably 3% - 4% better than you would have got for cash or travellers cheques

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%26lt;%26lt;%26lt;USBank VISA and MC charge up to 2.5%%26gt;%26gt;%26gt;

DA,

In this example Visa and MC are only charging 1%, USBank is charging 1.5% on top of what Visa and MC charge. The customer pays 2.5%.

In the example of credit unions and certain other banks (USAA and Capital One for instance) charging 1%, this is not technically true. More accurately, they are only passing along the fee charged by Visa and MC, the bank itself is charging you nothing.

While using credit cards often allows one access to the best possible rates of exchange, it%26#39;s the added fees the banks charge that one must be careful about.

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