American Express exchange rates

A_T

Trying to find the Amex rates to compare them against those offered by Visa and Mastercard. Can't seem to find them anywhere?

Probably not good I imagine if they're hard to find!

SW17

You can check the rates used by Amex if you have an Amex card, there is a calculator available when logged into your account. I haven't seen one available to non-cardholders.

The issues with using Amex overseas for UK cardholders are threefold as far as I can see:

1. The rates are not quite as good as the MasterCard daily rate from what I've seen, though the difference is not massive, about 0.3-0.7% difference on a few comparisons. They say they use industry standard interbank rates, though don't know where they get them.

2. For any transactions not in US Dollars, they convert via the USD, amplifying any small differences in point 1 above (assuming the same differences exist across all currencies).

3. Most significantly, they charge 2.99% foreign transaction fees on top of the above rates, plus £3 more for any cash advances. Perhaps they have certain cards where these charges vary, but I think it's fairly standard.

So, compared to cards like Clarity etc, they work out a fair bit more expensive. I rarely use my Amex outside the UK, and then only in emergencies or for certain USD transactions for other reasons. You may get benefits like Memebrship Reward points, but those are worth less than 0.5% effective "cashback" by my calculations.

blindman

SW17 wrote: »

You can check the rates used by Amex if you have an Amex card, there is a calculator available when logged into your account. I haven't seen one available to non-cardholders.

.

Using the above calculator today

100 Euro transaction costs:

American Express Exchange Rate 1.236
Non-Sterling Transaction Fee 2.99%
Non-Sterling Transaction Fee Amount £2.41
Total Amount £83.32*
* The calculated amount and American Express Exchange Rate are indicative for a conversion of the specified Foreign Spend on the specified Process Date.



Specific rules

If you make a transaction in a foreign currency, you will be charged a non-sterling transaction fee of 2.99% on the transaction amount. If you use your Card to withdraw cash abroad a cash fee of 3% of the withdrawal amount or £3 (whichever is greater) will be payable in addition to the non-sterling transaction fee

If you want to use AMEX overseas then get the new Curve card (when it comes out for normal users)

A_T

Thanks for the replies.

My MBNA Everyday Plus American Express Credit Card has "no fees on money transfers, balance transfers, ATM usage in the UK and abroad, or foreign exchange transactions".

But even when logged in I cannot find out these exchange rates.

SW17

A_T wrote: »

Thanks for the replies.

My MBNA Everyday Plus American Express Credit Card has "no fees on money transfers, balance transfers, ATM usage in the UK and abroad, or foreign exchange transactions".

But even when logged in I cannot find out these exchange rates.

OK, that's a bit different. My response was for cards issued by Amex themselves, rather than Amex acting as payment processor for another card issuer. Amex are a bit different to MasterCard and Visa in that they issue their own cards as well as providing payment processing for others.

Your card issuer is MBNA, and it seems with the card in question you don't pay the foreign exchange fees or cash advance fees. The rate calculator available to cardholders that I referenced above is on the Amex site, I presume you log into an MBNA site and they may not have it. For your purpose, the only difference will be the base exchange rate used, and my experience is that MasterCard has slightly better rates than Amex, the difference is not huge but can vary depending on which currencies are being used.

See also this thread for someone else's experience with this.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5352023