Using Vanquis Card abroad

reclusive46

Heng_Leng wrote: »

Also, on the few occasions that i've been offered DCC, the rate has been very poor. Only really worth considering if you have a % loading and transaction fee such as a MSE 'debit card from hell'.

On most of the debit cards that charge a £1 fee its a NON-UK fee so you still get charged the £1 even on a DCC transaction.

Anthorn

Heng_Leng wrote: »

Visa doesn't debit the account nor charge a 2.99% loading- the card issuer does this.

You get the nitpicker of the month award.

But if we want to be pedantic about it then the better option is a prepaid Euro or Dollar card where you can shop around for the best deal and are not confined basically to what you are stuck with and keep the Vanquis for when you must have a credit card, likely for hotel and car hire for example.

eskbanker

Anthorn wrote: »

But you don't know that until you find out who the payment processor is and what their conversion rates are. It could be that you will get a better rate from the merchant - likely in the Euro Zone. The fact remains that paying in GBP is the surer method. When you pay in local currency you essentially don't know what has been debited until you take a gander at your statement probably on-line.

Hence the rest of my sentence that you cropped when quoting!

The point being that such conversion rates aren't the official Visa (etc) ones or subject to any oversight/regulation/control and so essentially the merchant can set a rate to their advantage and therefore the customer's disadvantage, even though it does give the fixed GBP amount so the customer can tell how badly they've been shafted immediately!

System

You get PITA award.

The point being that Visa / MasterCard don't actually charge extra for European transactions so the 2.99% fee is solely from the issuer.

I also personally wouldn't recommend a prepaid Euro card over a credit card with no loading (getting the interbank forex rate).

Anthorn wrote: »

You get the nitpicker of the month award.

But if we want to be pedantic about it then the better option is a prepaid Euro or Dollar card where you can shop around for the best deal and are not confined basically to what you are stuck with and keep the Vanquis for when you must have a credit card, likely for hotel and car hire for example.