credit card use abroad

jayabee

best advice to make transactions in local currency gets best rates beware of first direct they charge 2.99% foreign currrency transaction charge £4.8 on £160 deal better in euros ?

grumbler

This long sentence without capital letters and punctuation marks makes very little sense to me.
Is it a warning/advice or a question?

This sort of currency conversion fees is pretty typical for most cards, but there are exceptions:

• Your Card's Overseas Charges

If by "transactions in local currency" you mean avoiding the Direct Currency Conversion (by the merchant's bank - instead of your bank), then I don't see what this has to do with 2.99% that FD charge for converting you ££ into local €€.

Fruit_and_Nut_Case

grumbler wrote: »

Is it a warning/advice or a question?

...or :spam: ?

lisyloo

2.99% is probably better than you'll get trying to change your money elsewhere although there are few 0% cards which are worth getting.

Suplex_Backbreaker

Not too sure if that was a question or not but generally it's nearly always better to make payments denominated in the local currency as the sterling rate applied by your credit card company when they bill you in pounds is usually reasonable.

The reason a merchant would be offering to bill you in sterling when abroad is because they have their own money-changing deal which tends not to be to your benefit and is aimed at taking advantage of people's lack of knowledge of market rates, or fear of paying in an unfamiliar currency.

Biggles

Would you feel differently about FD if you knew that having your £160 converted by the local retailer would probably have cost you in excess of 5%?