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Comment by alexee | Hacker News Reader

I wish they would issue credit cards soon. Every time I pay with credit card while travelling, my bank charges 1.5% for each transaction, in addition to bad conversion rate.

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If you're in the UK, have a look at Monzo. Not a credit card, but very useful to use abroad. They don't charge a transaction fee when abroad, and the currency conversion is tracked to the MasterCard rate (whereas other providers tend to do card issuer + their own cut on top).

Result is it's very cheap to use abroad. :)

Unfortunately, from the 18th December, that's stopping: https://monzo.com/blog/2017/10/17/atm-limits-announcement/

It's only for ATM withdrawals. If you are in first world country where card payments are well integrated this is not issue for you. Granted, in many developing countries you need cash so this will be issue.

My use case is frequent trips to Sydney for work - a surprising number of cafes and restaurants there are cash only.

Hmm, that's surprising. I have traveled a lot in Asia (never to Australia though) and from that experience I know a lot of Asia is still cash based but Australia I'd expect every coffee / convenience shop to accept Visa/Mastercard.

That is fascinating. As someone who lives in Sydney's outer suburbs, I simply never need cash. For anything. It's almost the exact opposite of Germany, where I lived for most of the last 5 years.

Was your experience all within the inner city?

Mostly yes - around George St. for work.

For sure many coffee shops and convenience stores accept card, but I definitely find myself having to pay cash quite often (just for instance, the laksa place on Hunter street).

Haha, have you never been to Germany? Tons of places still don't take credit cards.

I'm from EU (Slovakia) and not that far from Germany but surprisingly I have never been to Germany (not counting transit when I traveled through Germany in a train/bus or had to change flight) for some reason. I have always wanted to go but somehow I find places I want to go to more all the time so my travel to Germany keeps getting pushed down the list :D

Maybe 2-3 years ago, but at least in the cities the card acceptance is quite good. Berlin in particular and cafes in general being the exception.

… and bakeries, my god. I haven't seen a single bakery that accepts cards (EC or credit). Wanna buy €30 worth of cake to bring to work for your birthday? Nope, cash only.

Most Kamps do, some are franchise though.

I live in Munich and it still feels pretty hit and miss to me.

ATM withdrawals is the main selling point though.

There are plenty of cards in the UK that do not have a foreign transaction charge on purchases (nationwide, lloyds avios, for example).

From my experience though, Monzo has been much more reliable when traveling. It works in much more places in Asia for example. I traveled around Asia for a while before with my TSB UK debit card and it was getting declined almost everywhere, even in big cities like Hong Kong or Taipei (and yes I called TSB and told them I will be traveling Asia for few months in case they have some restrictions on debit cards in place, didn't help at all).

It got to a point I had to open local bank accounts and do wire transfers from my UK bank account to local bank accounts and use the local debit card. I just couldn't get my TSB/Lloyds card to work anywhere except high end western shops like Apple Store.

From Dec 18 Monzo will start charging fees for cash withdrawals abroad though. Which is relevant for people traveling to cash based countries (many in Asia) where cards only get accepted in high end stores and restaurants.

I was considering them until they changed their name. I just can't get over it.

And what was their old name?

Mondo. But it turns out there were some copyright issues (some other Mondo already existed) so they changed their name to Monzo.

Mondo -> Monzo

Mondo, they had some trademark issues with it and had to change it.

They actually plan to start charging for this because ATMs charge them:

£200 free allowance per month, 3% charge for withdrawals thereafter everywhere outside the UK

From here: https://monzo.com/blog/2017/09/13/atm-fees-abroad/

I would have just transparently passed on whatever the ATM charges rather than this weird 3% fee.

I'm a Monzo user and really unhappy to find this out. I spend most of my time in mainland Europe and the free transactions and no ATM fees are the only reason I am a user.

Can anyone comment on how Revolut compares? One pain point is that I always get asked if I want to pay in GBP or EUR, or even the cashier selects without asking me, in which case I get massively ripped off if they select GBP. With Revolut will the card look like a EUR card whilst travelling in the Eurozone?

I just used a Revolut card during a two week trip around Iceland. It worked fantastically well. Iceland's interesting as some places charge in Krona, some in Euro, but in either case I was charged the live mid-market rate to the GBP with no extra spread or fees.

You're also allowed to withdraw roughly £200/month worth of cash (any supported currency) without any fees. Beyond that there is a charge, I can't remember how much offhand but it's not too crazy.

The one problem I had with the card was at their petrol stations. Most are self-service and require the card to be pre-authed before the fuel will start being pumped. Revolut doesn't support this so I had to use another card or find stations where I could pay in store.

Same problem with petrol stations in the USA. Most were pay-at-pump and didn't accept the card.

I've got money in GBP, EUR and USD in a Revolut debit card. I've used it on ATMs in mainland Europe and continental US without problems.

Well Santander are now charging a 5 euro fee; Sabadel have been charging 1.50 for at least the last year.

With Revolut cards?

Yes

you get the same thing with revolut.

For overseas ATM withdrawals:

Monzo (After 18th December): £200/month, 3% thereafter (https://monzo.com/blog/2017/10/17/atm-limits-announcement/)

Revolut: £200/month (£400 with Premium), 2% thereafter

Starling: No charge

Not sure about any of the other challenger banks, I've only used Monzo on a regular basis.

If you're American, there are cards that don't have a foreign transaction fee, like the Capital One Quicksilver Visa or Chase Amazon Visa.

Schwab's checking accounts are also great for this, the ATM card reimburses ATM fees and has no foreign transaction fee for pulling out cash.

Pretty much all the airline cards have zero foreign currency fees. They still have less than perfect exchange rates though.

Depending on where you are from there might a better alternative.

In Europe, you have Revolut, N26 and Monzo which gives you a prepaid or debit MasterCard. Instead of the higher foreign transaction bank fees you will get either Mastercard’s or interbank rates, which is so much better than your traditional bank exchange rate.

I have tried to list some options here: https://globalmoneyapp.com

Revolut have appalling customer service. I have let a couple of rogue transactions go because it's such a hassle dealing with them.

I've heard they are planning on adding those fairly soon (in the spring of '18)

CapitalOne doesn't charge any foreign transaction fees on their credit cards.

Yeah but they charge on atm withdrawals and the exchange rate could be the banks rate depending on the card.

AFAIK, all credit cards charge high fees for cash withdrawals. You should never do a cash advance on your credit card. Use a debit card for that.

CapitalOne for credit cards, Schwab Bank for ATMs

Use Revolut, if you're in the UK.

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