Credit Card exchange rates

wavemaster

Made a purchase for 920 euro, xe.com suggests that to be £780. (£1 = 1.176 euro)

It went through on my mastercard at £802 (£1 = 1.15euro), no fee. £20 or so more than I was expecting.

I called the credit cars and asked how do I find out the exchange rate mastercard charge BEFORE making a purchase, she said "it depends on the UK bank rate" but didn't seem to know....

So, how do I find out prior? so I can choose which card to use to get the best rate?

chattychappy

You can't really check in advance because it's the processing date that's important. From my experience, stuff usually goes through same day, next day or the day after. I have had the odd transaction take a couple of weeks.

Santander Zero/Post Office from my experience offer genuinely unloaded rates. (I usually use the interbank rate from oanda.com as a reference). Sometimes I'm a little ahead, sometimes a little behind - probably because of timing/rounding or the visa/mastercard rates varying.

Clarity is supposedly unloaded too. One report here suggested that it was loaded but I don't have one to check.