BARCLAY Credit Card Transfer Fee

keithtoon

Hi all,
What have I done wrong?
I paid Booking.com 2,093 euros (£1893) but Barclaycard then charged me an extra £54.98p Non Sterling Fee
Seems unfair! 
How do I avoid paying this extra charge as I have another payment to make soon?
TIA Guys.

Ebe_Scrooge

Use one of the so-called "travel cards" that don't charge a Foreign Exchange fee: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/credit-cards/travel-credit-cards/

grumbler

MSE: Travel credit cards

Typically, the title is misleading - it's about both credit and debit cards.

Marchitiello

The faster way would be to change your Barclaycard to a Rewards card (0% forex fee /charges  plus 0.25% cashback).

you can don this easily within the app, unless you have one of the Avios cards for the existing rewards scheme but then you should not use it for a forex transactions.

If you cannot swap the current a Barclaycard product then as other said look into one of the forex free travel cards or bank accounts 

keithtoon

thank you1
Why do Barclays take £54.98p from my account? 
I paid the company Booking.com so why the charge? 
TIA

TadleyBaggie

Because you paid in Euros, which Booking.com charged to your Barclaycard. Barclays then had to do a Euro to Pound conversion, for which they charge you for. On top of that the exchange rate used might not have been the best either.

I do all my foreign transactions using a Starling debit card, no fees and they always use the official exchange rate at the time of the transaction.

Marchitiello

TadleyBaggie said:

Because you paid in Euros, which Booking.com charged to your Barclaycard. Barclays then had to do a Euro to Pound conversion, for which they charge you for. On top of that the exchange rate used might not have been the best either.

I do all my foreign transactions using a Starling debit card, no fees and they always use the official exchange rate at the time of the transaction.

This, albeit Barclaycard would have used Visa or MasterCard exchange rates, which are public. The problem is that they would add their Forex Fee (We'll charge a single non-sterling purchase fee of 2.99%)  for their cards but for the “Reward” version (which is Forex Fee Free).

Starling, Chase, Nationwide FlexiPlus and some others are good Bank Accounts with Forex Free benefits, although I guess for the type of transaction the OP did, a CC would have offered better protection, and thus my suggestion to swap to the Reward card from Barclaycard or similar Products (e.g. Halifax Clarity) from other CC issuers.

@keithtoon what type of Barclaycard do you have? 

cymruchris

keithtoon said:

thank you1
Why do Barclays take £54.98p from my account? 
I paid the company Booking.com so why the charge? 
TIA

Any time that you buy something in a currency other than £ - you'll get charged a fee with your existing credit card (and a large percentage of cards across the board). Whether it's Euro, American Dollar, Thai Baht - if it's not £ - there's a conversion process and associated fee.

The way to avoid it, is to ensure you have a card that doesn't charge this conversion fee - and as has been mentioned there are a few that would allow you to purchase fee free. As you already have a Barclaycard, you can find out if you're eligible for the 'Rewards' card by going into your app - there's a section there that will let you know which other Barclaycard products you can swap to if you decide to. (Depends on your history with Barclaycard and your general credit history - you may find they don't offer you alternative products at this time). 

Marchitiello

cymruchris said:

keithtoon said:

thank you1
Why do Barclays take £54.98p from my account? 
I paid the company Booking.com so why the charge? 
TIA

Any time that you buy something in a currency other than £ - you'll get charged a fee with your existing credit card (and a large percentage of cards across the board). Whether it's Euro, American Dollar, Thai Baht - if it's not £ - there's a conversion process and associated fee.

The way to avoid it, is to ensure you have a card that doesn't charge this conversion fee - and as has been mentioned there are a few that would allow you to purchase fee free. As you already have a Barclaycard, you can find out if you're eligible for the 'Rewards' card by going into your app - there's a section there that will let you know which other Barclaycard products you can swap to if you decide to. (Depends on your history with Barclaycard and your general credit history - you may find they don't offer you alternative products at this time). 

Just to be clear on the Barclaycard Swap advice:

one needs to go in the card section, then scroll sideways to the card in question, and then again scroll down to the section down the selected card page to “Change to a different card”. Options, if any, will be shown there. I always have options but have read reports that for those that have nothing showing, if they keep trying at different time of the day or day in the month, options suddenly appear