We haven/t traveled since April 2019, and are preparing a visit to Spain and Italy in April 2023. Way back in 2019 we used a US Bank on the west coast which did not charge fees for overseas transactions. Not too surprising, those days are gone and they now charge 1-1/2 percent fee as I recall.
Are there any cards as of 2023 that do not charge fees for European transaction, both charges and ATM withdrawls?
The most recommended cards are the Charles Schwab and the Capital One 360. Both are checking accounts, offer no fee ATM use, plus will reimburse for fees the ATM owner may charge. It does take some time to set up, so if interested, get on it now. I have the Schwab card, but to be honest, I use cash less and less when I travel, I rely on my credit card.
For charges, you could use those cards, but most prefer a charge card, lots of no fee cards out there. The one I use for travel is PIN priority, has contactless capability, no foreign transaction fees, and I have never had an issue with it. It is from the United Nations Federal Credit Union, it takes some doing to set up (you need to join an organization, apply for a credit line, etc.) but was worth it.
Get familiar with Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC) you will run into it frequently in Spain, and in Italy as well, not a problem as long as you understand how to decline. I found Spain had some of the highest ATM fees I have ever encountered.
To add, for charge cards without FTFs, I hold CapOne Quicksilver Mastercard, Chase Amazon Visa, and Visa Signature from Comity via AAA. All have varying cash back programs which do code properly outside the US. If you are traveling in April you ahve ample time to get the necessary accounts opened. Because of cash back and how the nAT networks determine their surcharge, I find it is cheaper to use cards as opposed to cash wherever possible.
When traveling, I'm using a Captial One Visa that I get 2% back on charges. There are no fees for straight purchases and the exchange rate is in real time from day to day. I put everything possible on that card.
I use my ATM card only to withdraw cash, and you can get by with using surprisingly little cash these days. Even the vending machines for train tickets take credit cards. European countries are credit card/ATM based societies today--more so than Americans.
There are lots or credit cards that qualify. Debt/ATM cards without forex fees are few, and mentioned above.
To clarify a few points...
Nothing much has changed in this regard since 2019.
The term you're looking for is "foreign transaction fee" (often just "FTF") - if I'm correctly understanding your use case. There's no such thing as charges for "European transactions" - the fees will apply equally anywhere outside the USA. On most cards, FTF charges are 3%. (If your old bank charges 1.5%, that's actually not too bad.)
But...you refer to your "card". Is that a credit or debit card? Are you using it for purchases, or just for withdrawing cash from your home bank account while abroad in Europe? Makes a difference.
Some important but often overlooked facts:
Most smart travelers use an "ATM card" (typically a Debit card) issued by their bank to withdraw cash from their home checking/savings account (basic, but worth repeating: never use a credit card to get a "cash advance" - the interest is punishing). You can (and should) find a bank/credit union that charges nothing for this (the ATM owner may, and usually does, charge a fee per transaction, but your own bank should not charge you anything at all for simply withdrawing money from your own account). That said, what many consumers don't understand is that someone has to do a conversion (since your money at home is in dollars and you will of course not be pulling dollars out of an ATM in Europe), and there is a cost to do that conversion. That's typically done by Visa, and they charge 1% for that. You won't see this conversion fee broken out seperately anywhere, it's just rolled into the conversion.
When you are using a credit card for a purchase, then that's where the FTF can bite you. With a zero-FTF card, you can beat that FTF fee (usually 3%).
There are hundreds, probably thousands of credit cards with zero FTF. Often (though not always) no-FTF credit cards come with an annual fee (might be minor, might be hefty). Some with a non-trivial annual fee come with no FTF plus oodles of other valuable benefits (exactly how valuable they might be to you may vary significantly) - sometimes (though not always) these are marketed as "travel cards". I have a stack of them and pay the annual fees happily because they are worth it for me. YMMV
Lots of people have their favorites. It pays to shop around for one that works for you.
Some airline affinity credit cards do not charge foreign transaction fees (though I think I still have a Delta card that does, so it doesn't get used). Whether any of those are available without an annual fee, I'm not sure.
I push virtually all purchases through an airline card for the miles. It's currently easy to cancel a frequent-flyer ticket and redeposit the miles at no charge, so having a stack of airline miles has been extremely useful during these uncertain times. If not for that very handy advantage, I think a card with good rebates would be better for me.
Maybe there’s a single sard that “does it all,” but pretty much for purchases we use one of our no foreign transaction fee credit cards, and for ATM cash we use our ATM debit card.
There could be exceptional card(s) like you’re seeking, but pretty much, credit cards are expensive for cash withdrawals, and debit cards will have a foreign transaction fee (ATM or purchases), plus they’re less likely to give perks like airline miles or cash back bonuses than credit cards.
Having more than one card in a trip is helpful, in case one gets lost, eaten by a machine, etc.
My personal experience is with the Chase Sapphire Preferred card. No transaction fees. 95$/year annual fee, but you get a $50 annual credit for hotel changes. Spend on the card accumulate Chase "Ultimate Reward"points, which are transferable to multiple airline and hotel programs, e.g., currently transfer to United Mileage Plus at 1:1. Similar travel cards are available from Citi or AmEx. There is also a credit for Global Entry or TsaPre fees.
My personal experience is with the Chase Sapphire Preferred card. No transaction fees. 95$/year annual fee, but you get a $50 annual credit for hotel changes. Spend on the card accumulate Chase "Ultimate Reward"points, which are transferable to multiple airline and hotel programs, e.g., currently transfer to United Mileage Plus at 1:1. Similar travel cards are available from Citi or AmEx. There is also a credit for Global Entry or TsaPre fees.
Is this new? I thought this was only offered on the "Reserve" card and not the Preferred.
I thought this [credit for Global Entry/TSA Precheck/NEXUS] was only offered on the "Reserve" card and
not the Preferred.
@knhellesky - You are correct on that point.
I have the Chase Sapphire Preferred card, too, and while it does provide the auto insurance coverage (among other benefits), it does not include any credit for Global Entry/TSA Precheck/NEXUS. (Many other cards do, including, as you mentioned, the more expensive Sapphire Reserve). The game of choosing a credit card is a complex one with lots of feature/benefit/cost tradeoffs and choices to weigh (an understatement), and is covered ad nauseam elsewhere on the internets.
Thank you to everyone for the helpful responses.
I have 2 follow-up questions
2.Wherever you are in the world, use the local currency. That’s one of the golden rules of traveling. It’s especially what to do if you’re in Europe, but offered by the merchant or waiter to pay in dollars, instead of euros. You’d be hit with an additional Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC) fee for the “convenience” of paying in “your” currency while their bank then converts it to “their” euros.
1: I have a Barclay US World Elite card that is supposed to function in Europe and, I'm told by Barclay does not have fees for European
purchases...
If Barclays says your card has no FTF then it doesn't. You should be able to confirm that by looking at their web page marketing the card. The transactions failing have nothing to do with any transaction fees. It might be this...
Whenever a US credit card appears to be failing for a European transaction, but there's no suspected fraud, no "decline", no evident reason it's failing, and the card-issuing bank, and everyone else involved says there's no problem, it should go through just fine but it won't...I usually suspect an obscure but widely used technology called "3-D Secure." It's a security system often used by companies that process European credit card transactions. Staff at your bank and the merchant trying to charge you may be oblivious and know nothing about it. Here's an old thread about it you may want to review:
3-D Secure credit card payments - wha???
This thread was started several years ago (when I first ran into this). 3-D Secure is still with us, though it seems lately to be less of an issue, and now it can be managed if you are able to reach someone at your credit card company who knows what they are doing. Barclays is an odd bank (they have many quirky behaviors you rarely find in bigger, more well-known US banks and credit card issuers). Your issue might not be 3-D Secure, but what you are describing sounds exactly like the way 3-D Secure makes transactions fail (that is: everybody on both ends of the transaction says, everything looks OK, it should go through, yet the transaction fails...your bank says they are NOT "declining" the transaction, the transaction just "fails" at some intermediate point. Everyone shrugs and says "maybe try it again", rinse, lather, repeat).
Short solution: try another credit card. Some cards handle 3-D secure seamlessly, some fail completely and mysteriously.
2: International monetary transactions, perhaps to only me, seem to be in flux. Whether they are or not, in order to minimize fees should I Pay in Euro or US$ both when I'm booking on line and paying while in Europe?
Always, ALWAYS A-L-W-A-Y-S pay in the local currency. Never accept an offer to pay in dollars. This is a common (probably the single biggest) scam on foreigners in the world. Look up "Dynamic Currency Conversion" aka DCC (there are countless threads here on it...enter "DCC" into the search box and feast your eyes...).
Thanks Cyn and David. We will heed your advise; and David, thanks for the tutorial. The RS' forum never fails.
Also, thanks again to those that posted earlier. I've printed this thread and given it to my wife who is the "credit/debit/ATM-card-manager at our house.
Jon
Jon, you'll want to have at least one card you can use for no-fee European bookings while you're still at home, but it's quite possible the Barclaycard will work just fine once you get to Europe. Definitely take it with you as a back-up card and test it out.
Re the Barclay and the hotel: some European card processors don't process US cards. Example: I can use a US card inside IKEA or Monoprix but not online. My French credit card works fine online for these two stores.
So try booking the hotel through Booking.com or Hotels.com and see if the Barclays works.
Also, most cards want us to give the overseas travel notifications via their private email in your account. But three people and 45 minutes is awful.
The Charles Schwab checking account is only supposed to be an option if you first set up a Charles Schwab investment account. I have some doubt about whether you should try getting around this rule. I only realized that I could get the separate Charles Schwab checking account with the no ATM fee card, after I had opened a Roth individual retirement account with Charles Schwab, transferred a thousand dollars into it, and bought some funds. Currently I have set up automatic transfer of $300 a month from my other bank into the Schwab checking account. I guess this partially is like my travel savings account. It is a good checking account but I doubt you should bend the rules to get it.
Mike L- while technically, I did open an investment account at the same time as my checking in 2018, I have never funded it and it’s never been a problem. I only keep 200-300 bucks in there, and add a bit when I’m headed overseas.
Scudder: this isn't the first time i have heard of somebody opening a Charles schwab investment account but leaving it empty just to get the checking account. This may be technically legal but it feels ethically wrong, like bending the rules to take advantage of Charles Schwab. The more people use the checking account without indirectly paying any fee to Charles Schwab by buying stocks or funds, the more likely they will have to raise fees on clients like me who do fund investment accounts.
Re the Schwab checking and investor accounts. I have just now opened this package for the second time. I did it both times in a local branch and they had no qualms about the investor account being open and empty while you enjoy the checking account. This is their call, and there is no reason to question this nor not take advantage of it. It's good for them, as some people will use their investor account.
