Using my captial one visa card on a US site

sharp910sh

Ok, I want to buy something from an american site, which works in dollars, as you would expect. I can either use paypal but their exchange is poor like £1 = 1.92$ So i was wondering would I get a better exchange rate with my credit card, or would I incur any fees.

Cheers

YorkshireBoy

You may get a better rate, but then you'll have a 2.75% foreign currency conversion charge applied (which will be 5.5 cents on $2).

bengal-stripe

That's the official VISA exchange rate:
http://www.corporate.visa.com/pd/consumer_services/consumer_ex_rates.jsp

Paypal charges a fee of 2.5%, most CC (and I believe that includes Cap1) charge 2.75%.

So, you're slightly better off with Paypal.

YorkshireBoy

I'm not familiar with Paypal, but would 'section 75' apply if purchasing through such a payment handling intermediary?

If it doesn't, then it may be better to take the 2.75% hit on Capital One?


EDIT: Assuming of course Capital One voluntarily cover overseas purchases (I believe some card providers do)?

bengal-stripe

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

I'm not familiar with Paypal, but would 'section 75' apply if purchasing through such a payment handling intermediary?

Today's VISA rate, taking 2.57% fee for the CC, works out as GBP1.00 = USD 1.90.

If the Paypal rate is really USD 1.92 as OP claims, that would be considerably better. (Although I think that might have been a few days ago.)

Paypal will show you the exact amount your card gets charged, before you hit the 'Proceed' button, if you don't like it, you can always cancel. The difference is, Paypal will charge that amount at the moment you hit the button. Any CC payment will be charged 2 or 3 days later at that particular day's exchange rate (which might have gone up or down in the meantime).

sharp910sh

Oh right, well I may just go with paypal because its only $25 so it wont make much difference only like 30p or so.

bengal-stripe

sharp910sh wrote: »

......so it wont make much difference only like 30p or so.

Not even that; difference is 3p. Don't spend it all at once!