Chase Sapphire Visa Card or AAA Visa Travel Money Card

Your credit union card will be the easiest, cheapest thing to use (except for the 0% credit card). The AAA Visa Card has fees associated with it for initiating the account and loading the money on, or it offers a worse exchange rate than you will get from an ATM abroad. Just make sure you tell your credit union when and where you will be traveling.

I haven't used either (I have the Capital One VISA and a Schwab Bank debit card as well as two credit union debit cards). A one percent fee isn't crazy. If you are leaving Monday, I wouldn't sweat it. One percent of one thousand dollars is only $10. My AAA site just says there is a purchase fee on its prepaid card, but doesn't say what it is. I'd bet it is more than $10 or even $20. It also shows a three percent foreign transaction fee. I have the Capital One card primarily for the rewards. The lack of a foreign transaction fee is just a bonus.

Do you have Chase Sapphire or Chase Sapphire Preferred? From their website, it looks like only the preferred card has no foreign transaction fees.

I have the Chase Sapphire Preferred card, and love it. Have not used it overseas yet but they are pretty clear about the zero foreign transaction fees (and I've heard nobody crying foul because that wasn't honored) - so I expect that to be true. Not related to your question, but it's worth noting that the card will yield about 53,700 miles as a sign up bonus, as long as you meet their $3000 spend requirement in the first 3 months. No annual fee the first year. Miles can be transferred directly into a number of airline programs. It's a great deal. The card is kind of distinctive looking and feeling (it's thick, feels metallic - it often gets comments from cashiers). I can't comment about the AAA card, not familiar with that. I would never own anything from Capital One - seems like a creepy evil company with incredibly obnoxious commercials - but to each their own. Of course, if you are leaving on monday (just 3 days from now) you don't have time to get any new credit card (at least not for this trip). Cheers.

I have a Chase Sapphire..it is correct that there are no transaction fees..they were dropped recently. There is however an annual fee but to me the benenfits are well worth the annual fee.

I have a Chase Sapphire..it is correct that there are no transaction fees..they were dropped recently. There is however an annual fee but to me the benenfits are well worth the annual fee.

We take three cards, a regular VISA that is used for hotels we don't pay cash for, a debit card linked to our credit union checking account, and a AAA Travel Money Card. The AAA card only has a few hundred dollars and is used in the emergency we can't use the credit union debit card. This has happened twice. Deb, There's lots of good information here on this thread and we have put it to good use. There are several people who really know what they are talking about. In my opinion a person can fool around and spend lots of time trying to find free money, but my description is about as cheap as us ordinary mortals can go.