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Comment by sofixa | Hacker News Reader

The card issuer and potentially the consumer via atrocious fees and a terrible exchange rate? I have a French-based American Express and their exchange rate + commission on any foreign currency transaction is flat out absurd (I'm talking like 50 euros commission on a 1k USD transaction, + a very bad course resulting in a total ~100+ euro difference than if I pay with a Revolut/N26/BoursoBank no-fee foreign currency payment card).

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I only use cards without FX or other fees. The amount is charged to the US card in Euros and Visa or Mastercard take a 50 basis point commission on the currency conversion, but since their settlement is not real time (end of day in US or something) often this can be a exchange rate win depending on your luck.

Interesting. Europe has stricter regulations that cap interchange. As a result not a lot of rewards cards and less competition in that space. In US no caps, but much more players in the rewards cards space. I've checked recent foreign transactions and it looks like both of popular travel cards make some money on exchange rates, but not as much as in France.

Amex Plat did not charge foreign fee, but exchange rate is 1% less favorable according xe.com

Chase Sapphire Reserve also no fees, exchange rate is 0.3% different from xe.com

> I've checked recent foreign transactions and it looks like both of popular travel cards make some money on exchange rates, but not as much as in France

Don't get me wrong, there are tons of options for cheap or downright free foreign exchange transactions (such as Revolut, N26, Fortuneo, BoursoBank just in France). It's Amex in particular that are borderline scamming their French customers on foreign transactions.

Never heard about others but Revolut is not a great example. 1% exchange fee plus another 0.3% on exchange rate. I agree that Amex is scamming their european customers. But my point was that they don't do it in US despite the lack of regulations. Same Amex is nicer to their american customers than Revolut to europeans. And one of Revolut's main selling points is their great exchange rates.

https://www.revolut.com/currency-converter/

Pretty much all Amex cards with an annual fee have no foreign transaction fees as a benefit. The issue is that a lot of small business merchants outside of the US don't accept Amex (or will at least say they don't to avoid the higher interchange fee).

Not in France - I have an Amex Platinum and with it I get the above described absurd fees and bad exchange rates.

Funnily I've gotten notified a couple of times by Amex, as per ECB regulations, that the course they've used is significantly worse than the official one.

I don't think that's the case outside the US. Sweden here; all of the Amex cards available locally charge a 2% currency exchange fee.

Every foreign exchange writes "no transaction fee". What they forget to mention is their exchange rate.

> Pretty much all Amex cards with an annual fee have no foreign transaction fees as a benefit.

Even in the US, this is not true. The Blue Cash Preferred and Everyday Preferred cards have foreign transaction fees, as does the Business Green card.

Practically all non-US-issued Amex cards have foreign transaction fees as well. The US card market seems to be very competitive on that front.

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