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Similarly, for Amex in the UK: you can use your card abroad, but they charge you 3% (!) on top of their own exchange rate - even for USD transactions. What's
by gabemart 10y ago
Similarly, for Amex in the UK: you can use your card abroad, but they charge you 3% (!) on top of their own exchange rate - even for USD transactions.
What's worse - if your foreign transaction is in any other currency than USD, they convert twice: once from the original currency into USD, and then again from USD into GBP. They only charge you 3% once, but you do suffer from their internal, presumably self-serving exchange rates twice.
This is in an environment where there are many UK credit cards offering fee-free foreign transactions at the "true" (no spread) exchange rate, and many more offering true exchange rate + less than 1%.
The Amex offering is laughably poor in comparison.
- tim333 10y agoThat's terrible. Really enjoying using Monzo abroad which gives pretty much the interbank rate with no fees. YC alumni run startups for the win.
- awfgylbcxhrey 10y agoThe best deal I've found for international use is Schwab. I forget the purchasing terms, but for ATM access they don't charge a currency conversion fee, and they even reimburse you the mandatory 1% fee.