Tesco credit card charged me exchange fee

Buzby

Yep - As others have noticed, unless you have a card that explicitly features no foreign currency fees, your card will charge you additionally - something that is avoided if you ask the merchant to bill you in Sterling, however, whether this works for you depends on what their exchange rate is, and whether this will be less than the 2.75% charged by your card co.

I've been using a Saga card, which has an APR of 11.8% and no curreency fees, so I've had no reason to switch.

jackieblack

cazwasere wrote: »

We've just got OH's credit card bill - Tesco Credit Card- we travel a lot and this is the first month ever that it looks like we have been charged 2.75% per transaction, never seen this before in years of travelling and using credit cards - have experienced a different exchange rate being shown line by line. Has something changed in the last month? We were last in France in April and no charges broken down on that bill. Looks like we picked up over 25 quid in additional charges that were not expected so currently reviewing spend abroad - we go again in less than 3 weeks.....

Tesco have always charged 2.75%, they've just never shown it separately before, it's previously always been included in the £ amount shown
eg, assume exchange rate of 1.25 euro to £1
before: spend 125 euros, cc statement shows transaction cost £102.75
now: spend 125 euros, cc statement shows transaction of £100 plus seperate fee of £2.75

You're not being charged any fees you weren't being charged before, it's just being shown clearly on the front of the statement instead of just in the list of charges on the back of the statement.

OllyM

cazwasere wrote: »

We've just got OH's credit card bill - Tesco Credit Card- we travel a lot and this is the first month ever that it looks like we have been charged 2.75% per transaction, never seen this before in years of travelling and using credit cards - have experienced a different exchange rate being shown line by line. Has something changed in the last month? We were last in France in April and no charges broken down on that bill. Looks like we picked up over 25 quid in additional charges that were not expected so currently reviewing spend abroad - we go again in less than 3 weeks.....

You have always been charged a foreign transaction fee on the Tesco card, they have just hidden it away in the exchange rate until recently. Read this guide and get one of the suggested cards if you go abroad frequently - Halifax Clarity is recommended.

cazwasere

Off looking at Halifax now, thanks all

cs29

Always been this exchange rate loading with Tesco and most other card providers but included in the conversion rate so if you had worked out the rate you got it would come over as a poor rate (2.75% worse) than the current rate of exchange for that day. What you did not realise was being done on all your transactions is now having to be shown and people of course are surprised by it.

Hofmeister

I have just checked my account, and i cannot see this charge on any transactions i did in poland the weekend? Just a total amount of each transaction..............?