MSE News: Mastercard vs Visa for using abroad – which wins?

Mikeact

As an Avios user, I will stick with Lloyds/Amex, Supercard and Curve, also Caxton and my home debit card for dire emergencies. But then, I could also use my Revolut card.

alchemst

Both offer 0% charges for use in shops/taxis/restaurants etc etc...

I have both , but which is better to use Abroad for holiday?

Mikeact

You're maybe missing a point.
Use either if you are not that bothered. But, if you collect points etc., from another regular credit card you may have ie, Tesco or Waitrose maybe, then use one of those cards linked to Supercard. Every overseas expenditure then earns you points as if it were a UK spend.

marklee

Super helpful article, thank you.

I stumbled across it today after discovering quite how terrible the exchange rates being used by Visa on my Nationwide Select Card were today.

Using the Visa Europe and Mastercard convertors, for transactions on 12 July...

USD / GBP:
Visa: 1.285
Mastercard: 1.324
You get 3% more dollars with Mastercard vs Visa

JPY / GBP:
Visa: 129.99
Mastercard: 136.2
you get 5% more yen with Mastercard vs Visa

Pretty outraged at the scale of the difference. I complained to Nationwide and they shrugged "Understand your concern, but it's nothing to do with us, complain to Visa." Think I'm swapping to Halifax Clarity.

zagfles

marklee wrote: »

Super helpful article, thank you.

I stumbled across it today after discovering quite how terrible the exchange rates being used by Visa on my Nationwide Select Card were today.

Using the Visa Europe and Mastercard convertors, for transactions on 12 July...

USD / GBP:
Visa: 1.285
Mastercard: 1.324
You get 3% more dollars with Mastercard vs Visa

JPY / GBP:
Visa: 129.99
Mastercard: 136.2
you get 5% more yen with Mastercard vs Visa

Pretty outraged at the scale of the difference. I complained to Nationwide and they shrugged "Understand your concern, but it's nothing to do with us, complain to Visa." Think I'm swapping to Halifax Clarity.

I suspect most of that is down to timing of when the daily rates are set - the pound has been very volatile today it moved about 2.5c against the dollar in the last 24 hours. Check over a few days and you'll likely see a much smaller difference.

VISA definitely have a bigger spread though - just reverse the currencies and multiply the rates and you can see that VISA has a spread of around 1.3-1.5% for both USD and JPY whereas Mastercard's spread is tiny.

marklee

zagfles wrote: »

I suspect most of that is down to timing of when the daily rates are set - the pound has been very volatile today it moved about 2.5c against the dollar in the last 24 hours. Check over a few days and you'll likely see a much smaller difference.

I'm very intrigued now as to how Visa sets its rates.

For example, if you look at today's rate for JPY / GBP, it's 134.28. However, at the end of yesterday, the interbank JPY / GBP rate was ~139.32, and it's been trading around 138 / 139 all day today.

The inverse rate on GBP / JPY is also better than the market, creating an arbitrage opportunity for Japanese cardholders.

Whole thing seems very odd - not only does Visa have a wider spread than Mastercard, but Visa also seems to be pretty poor at tracking more volatile exchange rates than Mastercard.

Nick_Young

Hello All,
I have just obtained a Halifax Clarity card to find out the following:-
1. There is a 2.95% fee for using this card abroad.
2. There is a cash fee of 3% (minimum £3)
3. If withdrawing cash abroad, you'll pay an additional non-sterling transaction fee of 2.95%.
Thus not the amazing card for overseas use as Martin makes out!
Nick

eDicky

Nick_Young wrote: »

Hello All,
I have just obtained a Halifax Clarity card to find out the following:-
1. There is a 2.95% fee for using this card abroad.
2. There is a cash fee of 3% (minimum £3)
3. If withdrawing cash abroad, you'll pay an additional non-sterling transaction fee of 2.95%.
Thus not the amazing card for overseas use as Martin makes out!
Nick

You've got it wrong somehow, Nick, there are no such fees for the Clarity. What makes you think so?

A_T

Are you sure you've got a Clarity Card? It's not always easy to tell.

If digits on the card 5-8 are 0300 you have a Clarity. If not you haven't.

fifeken

A_T wrote: »

Are you sure you've got a Clarity Card? It's not always easy to tell.

If digits on the card 5-8 are 0300 you have a Clarity. If not you haven't.

Is that for more recently issued ones? I've got a Clarity Card and it's not got the numbers you say.