Ask HN: International Credit Cards ? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: International Credit Cards ?

1 pointcskau4 comments

I've been several months in Japan the past two years and I'm going for another two months shortly. I'm holder of a Danish VISA credit card which I've been using extensively so far, since I don't like running around with a lot of cash all the time. This however is quite expensive as every time I withdraw money from it I'm charged the equivalent of ~5 USD in VISA fees. With a withdraw limit of ~325 USD per day this amounts to a fair share..

I've been thinking of finding a more international bank that might be able to offer a better deal, but I have no idea where to even start.

It might be worth mentioning I'm located in Denmark, and only hold a Danish citizenship, which might limit the selection of banks.

Can anyone recommend any possibly cheaper card/solution ?

- talk to your bank to increase your withdrawal limit - japan is a pretty safe place to walk around w/ a bit of money, so u may wish to revisit your assumptions - are you sure it's a credit card and not a debit card? if you're looking to withdraw cash, a debit card can be more cost-efficient by not charging you interest fees - in the u.s. credit unions have a network that provides cheap debit card usage at other banks in their network. of course these are often out of the way, so if you find the equivalent in japan and denmark, it'll likely cost you more than $5 in time and travel to get to the place.

good luck.

Thanks. I'm equally interested in a debit card if it would provide cheaper withdrawal. In my current bank the debit VISA Electron card would be the same, but the limit is about 820 USD instead. I might go for that. The problem, I'm told, is not the interest fees on the VISA credit card but the fact that VISA takes a foreign currency exchange fee, which my bank then passes on to me.

Citibank ought to let you open a Yen account. I'm English but when I was working in the US I had no problems opening a USD account with them (via my branch in England).

I was initially thinking Citibank, but they don't seem to have any foothold in Denmark. Then I tried to contact them, but their site is a confusing mess of links back and forth. The only thing I ever found was the American support phone line.

Thanks for the tip though. I'll give it another shot.

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