Travel Credit Cards

OriR

Seeing as I hate to give money to credit cards for no reason I am a loyal user of Barclaycard rewards as it has 0% transaction fee.
However, I have recently got the BA amex card for avoid points and companion voucher and I thought I would look into how much they would charge for foreign transaction fees and the results are strange.
A 400 euro charge on amex would cost £356 including £10 (2.99%) foreign transaction fee.
The same charge on my barclaycard rewards would cost £362.

This doesn't match up with what I thought or the advice on this website.
Have I missed something?

jay1804

How did you work out the barclaycard transaction, because I worked it out to be £ 345.996

jbrassy

The OP is wrong. According to Visa, they charge a 0.51% mark up above the ECB rate for euro transactions:
https://www.visa.co.uk/support/consumer/travel-support/exchange-rate-calculator.html

On the other hand, Amex charge a 2.766% mark up above the ECB rate for euro transactions. On top of this, you'll have to pay the 2.99% foreign transaction fee:
https://www.americanexpress.com/uk/legal/fx-ecb-comparison/

Therefore, you'll definitely be better off using Barclaycard vs the BA Amex. 

MaryLongstaff

Revolut is a great debit card to use for foreign transactions - it doesn't charge for changing currency as it just buys and sells at the current global rate, you can even make money from exchanging currencies this way. It also has all the features of a modern online bank account (e.g. budgeting, immediate spending notifications etc). 

jbrassy

MaryLongstaff said:

Revolut is a great debit card to use for foreign transactions - it doesn't charge for changing currency as it just buys and sells at the current global rate, you can even make money from exchanging currencies this way. It also has all the features of a modern online bank account (e.g. budgeting, immediate spending notifications etc). 

Revolut is terrible. The customer service is abysmal, as has been highlighted many times on this forum. With the free plan, you can only spend £1000 fee-free and up to £300 of ATM withdrawals a month fee-free. If you want a debit card, you'd be far better getting a Starling Bank account where you can get unlimited fee-free ATM withdrawals and overseas transactions.