Overseas' spending: Visa vs Mastercard

RichardJW1

europa wrote: »

Will-in-Estoril was only trying to point out that this is not a fair comparison as only the Nationwide card has a non-loading policy. So clearly the Nationwide card would come out top in your comp!

well actually the cash APR on VISA is higher at 27.9% than Mastercard at only 24.9% so in terms of that the Mastercard is the winner

europa wrote: »

In any case, the original question was whether the Nationwide or PostOffice card is better for using in US. This is what i was also wondering. Anyway the answer is now clear. If the transaction occurs in Europe, it should make no (or v little difference). However, outside Europe the PO card should be slightly cheaper. Either way, the only credit cards one should ever use abroad (if feasible) are the Nationwide or PO cards!

Yes, correct - but I don't see a mention of USA

hippey

The best card to use is the one that would provide no loading of fee's, i.e. Post Office or Nationwide (upto the 6th May)

The difference between M/Card, Visa, Amex & Discover are very minor and all will fluctuate during the day and really every second, as rates are wholesale, not looked up on a website as previously suggested.

However some issuers do round the convestion to X amount of decimal places so they can make or lose you some cash. The use of a Credit card to withdraw from ATMs or banks should be avoided due to the extra interest and often extra top loaded fee's, but sometimes it just can't be helped, infact some debit cards are not recognised in the ATMs even when the symbol is present on the machine.

As for US issued cards, the banks *sometimes* charge for use wherever that might be, but don't forget the banking system there is set up differently to ours and this is not uncommon.

DM_saver

I have a Nationwide card and am thinking of the Abbey Zero but not sure if a measley 0.84 is worth it as I have found Visa just edges ahead of mastercard when ever I check on xe.com for mastercard and visa's currency calculator for Visa. (The latter lets you put in the currency and whatever your loading fee is to get your true exchange rate for any visa card before you go away)

Today for e.g Nationwide (Visa)- $1.63 to $1 (with 0.845 loading)
Abbey Zero (MC)- Fluctuated from $1.623 to 1.619 (within an hour)

Also note Visa would be $1.64 to £1 if you had a visa card with a comparable 0%

p.s Nationwides customer service is abysmal however!