Guest MelE Posted December 31, 2005 Share Posted December 31, 2005 Seeing that a post about a mere £10 annual charge for some other forum has attracted over 40 posts (!!!), I thought I'd better give you all THE TIP for getting about 2.5% to 3% off all foreign purchases made with a credit card. It's simple: get a Nationwide Credit Card: they make no foreign exchange charge on purchases made overseas. All other Visa and Mastercard credit cards charge around 2.5% to 3%, though you won't spot this as it's built into the translation rate between Euros (or whatever) and ££s. Like other cards, Nationwide do make a charge for overseas cash withdrawals on credit cards. To check it out, I made alternate purchases in New Zealand with Nationwide and my Morgan Stanley Mastercard. The foreign exchange rates were 2.5% to 3.5% better with Nationwide. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest MelE Posted December 31, 2005 Share Posted December 31, 2005 If you're the right age, I believe the SAGA credit card operates on a similar basis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Derek Uzzell Posted December 31, 2005 Share Posted December 31, 2005 Mel: I believe you were correct originally when you said that, where purchases world-wide are concerned, the Nationwide credit card is unique in not imposing an 'exchange-rate loading'. Based on the December 2005 Which? report it seems that even Saga charges 1% on purchases made outside Europe. For purchases made within Europe, Nationwide, Saga or Liverpool Victoria cards (that's the Caravan Club and CSMA cards and possibly others) all impose no exchange-rate loading. Nowadays every credit card provider not only imposes a fee for cash withdrawals from ATMs abroad but also charges interest on the amount withdrawn from the moment the withdrawal is made. However, this fee + interest-charge can be avoided by using a Nationwide DEBIT card instead, but to do this one needs to have a Nationwide "Flexaccount" and (obviously) enough money in that account to cover the withdrawals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest PeteC Posted December 31, 2005 Share Posted December 31, 2005 Can confirm the Caravan Club Card has Zero commissinon on O/S purchases in €uro zone The new Camping &CC card has a charge Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bryan thurlow Posted January 1, 2006 Share Posted January 1, 2006 Cater allen do a Euro debit card which does not charge for atm withdrawals or levy a charge on purchases in europe.If you want interest as well then you need to keep 10000Euros in account.but we just bumble along with a 3000 € float and use the atms .the loss of interest is more than made up by the free atms.We use another credit card for Stg and other currencies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Keith T Posted January 1, 2006 Share Posted January 1, 2006 Have had Cater Allen Euro card for some years, and find it's great. Also when 'funding' it, the rate they give you is far better than the 'tourist' rate, and no charges for any type of usage. The only donslide maybe the need to fund in advance, and try to beat the markest for the 'best' conversion rate, though on €2/3k the diff isn't too much anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Mike C Posted January 9, 2006 Share Posted January 9, 2006 The big questions that maybe a lot of people would want answered is:- Do they work in french supermarket auto machines and if so how do you obtain one Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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