No fees and better UX are the main selling points.
It might shine for foreign transactions: no fee (usually 2%) + 1% cashback seems pretty good. If we're being realistic though, they'll probably have a terrible FX spread.
It might shine for foreign transactions: no fee (usually 2%) + 1% cashback seems pretty good. If we're being realistic though, they'll probably have a terrible FX spread.
Just be careful, if someone in a foreign country offers to bill you in your local currency you literally cannot win. They whack you with a ~10% "convenience" fee and if your issuer charges foreign transaction fees, they'll do that anyways because it's based on point of sale and not based on currency.
Agreed.
> Just be careful, if someone in a foreign country offers to bill you in your local currency you literally cannot win.
Yep, always take the bill in local currency. ATMs will often try to scare a person into converting, but the rate and fee is almost always much worse than a person's bank.
Not just worse, additive haha. You pay both fees stacked on top. But it's a small price to pay for the peace of mind knowing exactly what your exchange rate is going to be in the moment, if the ATMs are to be believed haha.
It's not even competitive on foreign transactions... There's a whole bunch of cards that give you (at least) 1.5% cash back with no foreign transaction fee or annual fee. Off the top of my head: BoA Travel Rewards, Cap One QuicksilverOne, Navy Federal CashRewards, PayPal MasterCard (2%).
Fidelity Visa gets you 1% cash back on foreign transactions (normal 2%-1% fee)
Though admittedly I have 3 cards with no CBA and only that charges a 3.8% CBA... but I did prioritize for cards better for international travel. Most of my friends have cards that do charge a CBA