Do you pay regular international credit card fees when using Paypal?

If you pay PAYPAL account with credit cards, there will be an international charge. I'm not aware of any credit cards with no international charge. Be interested to hear from others. To avoid that, you can pay PAYPAL with bank transfer. BTW, did you ask owners if there's any cash discount? We used credit card to reserve and pay cash upon arrival. Oftentimes get a discount.

Capital One does not charge international fees for use of their credit cards. From their website: "Capital One does not charge a fee for using your credit card for foreign currency transactions. Foreign purchases will be converted at the foreign exchange rate in effect at the time of posting the charge". If you don't have one, I would suggest getting one just for overseas travel. It saved us lots of money, however, it is true that paying cash can sometimes get you a discount with the owner of the establishment as well.

I'm pretty sure that if you use Paypal, do not use a Capital One card, and the company is not based out of the US (some of these rental company are based out of the US) you would pay the fee, which is usually around 3-5%.

Thanks for the information! Although I was doing some research on the internet about Capital One and some folks say that you don't pay a transaction fee, but the conversion rate ends up being above 1% the going rate. I was wondering if anybody has experienced that since it seems like many folks on this website have used Capital One and were satisfied.

Thanks for the information! I was hoping to hear something that someone had looked at the exchange rate for that day. Thanks for sharing that information.

I've been trying to find the website that saw a comment from a soldier in a foreign country and said that his exchange rate was the 1% higher. I can't find it, but will continue to look. That's why I came hear, I figured that there are folks that have looked into this! And you're right, 1% still isn't bad.

On the same note, I have my Discover credit card set to my Paypal account. I see that Discover charges no fees either (where it is accepted, in Europe it's not) for international transactions. I guess I'll just pull the bandaid and do it.

Thanks much for the detailed info!!

I did some research and here is what I found: It appears that not only does Capital One not charge a fee, the exchange rate appears comparable to what the going rate is at the time, so you are not paying differently. According to my credit card statement, here is the exchange rate for one of our transactions: 2009-04-23 ESPACE TOURISME PARIS 01 FRA-CURRENCY: EUR EXCHANGE RATE: 0.768122900% and the average for April 23rd was 0.766284 EUR. Again, it seems pretty comparable to me taking into account the daily fluctuations. We actually did better than the average rate on some transactions (I guess we bought at the right time of day).

I am curious as to where you got the info and I am also curious as to whether others get the impression that Capital One does not give a fair exchange rate. According to their website and a service representative, it is the daily exchange rate. If not true, I guess I can live with it since 1% of the above rate is still much less than a percentage of your total purchase. Right?

If you belong to a credit union, check their policies. My card from the Golden One CU in California charges the 1% from Visa but doesn't add on the other 2% the way most banks do. I decided that was good enough that I didn't have to go to the trouble of trying to get a new Capital One card.

Amex I think is 2%.

Discover is zero fee but fat chance using it in Europe. The card doesn't weigh much, so I'll take mine for the outside chance it might work somewhere.

Check Discover's website for specifics. I believe it says specifically that it is not accepted in Europe. VISA / MC work just fine. Just call your banks ahead of time to avoid being shut off.