Best Credit Card

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timbr
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Re: Best Credit Card

Post by timbr »

Can't comment in this card specifically, but there have been a few new offerings in recent months that don't have foreign exchange fees. Also have a look at the Chase Amazon.ca Visa and Chase Marriott Rewards Premier Visa.
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Re: Best Credit Card

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izzy wrote:Seems too good to be true eh?
Not at all. As mentioned either upthread or another credit card thread Amazon.ca has a similar card with no FX surcharge and a 1% rebate and a $15 welcome bonus: https://www.chase.com/online/canada/amazon-ca-home.htm

I'm using it currently in Europe and getting decent FX rates, e.g. 1.2544 on the Euro as of a couple of days ago.
Any idea what the catch is?
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Re: Best Credit Card

Post by Bylo Selhi »

More good news re the Amazon.ca credit card with no FX vig. Yesterday I prepaid the balance on the card plus ~$1,000 using TD/CT EasyWeb. This morning (Europe time) I took a "cash advance" of €400 (the daily max) out of an ATM in a little village in Austria. Now I see on the Amazon/Chase web site that they deducted $503.69 from my card balance. That's a rate of 0.7941. Google Finance reports that the official FX rate is currently 0.7937. So (a) no FX vig and (b) no ATM fee.

:thumbsup: and thanks to pmj who suggested this card upthread.
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Re: Best Credit Card

Post by pmj »

Thank you.

To see the exact exchange rate at a precise time, yahoo's 1-day chart is useful:
http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=C ... =;range=1d;

It's interesting how volatile rates are some days - eg from 0.7919 to 0.7969 today.
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Re: Best Credit Card

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Bylo Selhi wrote:Now I see on the Amazon/Chase web site that they deducted $503.69 from my card balance. That's a rate of 0.7941. Google Finance reports that the official FX rate is currently 0.7937. So (a) no FX vig and (b) no ATM fee.
Verrry interesting... Now they show a debit of $505.01for a conversion rate of 0.7921 plus a $5.05 "CASH ADVANCE FEE." That's still only ~1% which is still better than TD/CT's 2.5% vig.
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Re: Best Credit Card

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Bylo Selhi wrote:
Bylo Selhi wrote:Now I see on the Amazon/Chase web site that they deducted $503.69 from my card balance. That's a rate of 0.7941. Google Finance reports that the official FX rate is currently 0.7937. So (a) no FX vig and (b) no ATM fee.
Verrry interesting... Now they show a debit of $505.01for a conversion rate of 0.7921 plus a $5.05 "CASH ADVANCE FEE." That's still only ~1% which is still better than TD/CT's 2.5% vig.
In the T&C's, it states: "To be charged on the day the transaction occurs: (unless otherwise indicated) Cash Advance 1.0% of the Cash Advance amount, minimum $5.00"

So this is a better card than TD for ATM usage assuming you withdraw $200CAD equivalent or more.
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Re: Best Credit Card

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cockroach wrote:In the T&C's, it states: "To be charged on the day the transaction occurs: (unless otherwise indicated) Cash Advance 1.0% of the Cash Advance amount, minimum $5.00"
Yabbut is it really a cash advance when the credit card account has a cash balance that exceeds the amount of the withdrawal? [Recall that upthread I posted, "Yesterday I prepaid the balance on the card plus ~$1,000 using TD/CT EasyWeb. This morning (Europe time) I took a "cash advance" of €400 (the daily max) out of an ATM..."] In reality I advanced them $1,000 then took about $500 of it back. My account still has a positive (to me) balance of almost $500. Why don't they pay me 1%, min. $5, for advancing them my money? :twisted: I won't even charge them any interest, never mind at their ~20% rates ;)
So this is a better card than TD for ATM usage assuming you withdraw $200CAD equivalent or more.
Yes, indeed. It's generally not a good idea to withdraw small amounts at an ATM because of the minimum and/or fixed fees. I'd have withdrawn more than €400 but that's the daily maximum at Austrian ATMs.
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Re: Best Credit Card

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Bylo Selhi wrote:Why don't they pay me 1%, min. $5, for advancing them my money? :twisted: I won't even charge them any interest, never mind at their ~20% rates ;)
No North American credit card I know of pays interest on debit balances. OTOH, two decades ago, when I was in South Africa, my gold MasterCard was paying me ~ 10% annual interest on debit balances, in an environment where mortgages (all one rate over there, and called "home loans") were around 15%.
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Re: Best Credit Card

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RBC Visa won't let me prepay my card anymore; Something to do with their liability if the card is lost or stolen.
I used it to get cash in the US, usually no fees from the US bank that I got when using a debit card.
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Re: Best Credit Card

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deaddog wrote:RBC Visa won't let me prepay my card anymore
How could they stop it if you, say, prepay it from a non-RBC account?
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Re: Best Credit Card

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adrian2 wrote:
deaddog wrote:RBC Visa won't let me prepay my card anymore
How could they stop it if you, say, prepay it from a non-RBC account?
Probably the same way as when I try to pay with my RBC account, they just refuse the payment.
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Re: Best Credit Card

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Bylo Selhi wrote:
cockroach wrote:In the T&C's, it states: "To be charged on the day the transaction occurs: (unless otherwise indicated) Cash Advance 1.0% of the Cash Advance amount, minimum $5.00"
Yabbut is it really a cash advance when the credit card account has a cash balance that exceeds the amount of the withdrawal? [Recall that upthread I posted, "Yesterday I prepaid the balance on the card plus ~$1,000 using TD/CT EasyWeb. This morning (Europe time) I took a "cash advance" of €400 (the daily max) out of an ATM..."] In reality I advanced them $1,000 then took about $500 of it back.
Just curious, had the prepayment posted to the CC account when you withdrew? You seemed to indicate just one day in between and online payment processing often(not always) takes several.
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Re: Best Credit Card

Post by Bylo Selhi »

The Amazon.ca card is run by Chase Canada. I use Chase's https://online.chasecanada.ca to monitor my account. A few hours after the ATM withdrawal the transaction appeared under "Review Authorizations." Presumably this is a preliminary record, sort of like the temporary hold a merchant puts on your card when you first make a purchase. Then the next day the revised transaction, along with the Cash Advance fee, was posted under the regular Transactions log.
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Re: Best Credit Card

Post by gsp_ »

You didn't answer what I was asking so let me try again, sorry if my query was unclear.
Yesterday I prepaid the balance on the card plus ~$1,000 using TD/CT EasyWeb. This morning (Europe time) I took a "cash advance" of €400 (the daily max) out of an ATM in a little village in Austria.
Had the 1k prepayment shown up in your online Chase account when you made that ATM withdrawal?
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Re: Best Credit Card

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gsp_ wrote:Had the 1k prepayment shown up in your online Chase account when you made that ATM withdrawal?
Yes. The experiment was to wait until the prepayment was shown on Chase's site, i.e. they had my money, before withdrawing (some of) it via ATM, i.e. so they'd have no defensible excuse for charging me an advance fee.
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Re: Best Credit Card

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ISTM that the reason/excuse for a cash advance fee is one or more of:
1. There's a cost to providing the facility to make cash withdrawals
2. There's no merchant paying a vig to the CC co
3. We'll stick-it-to-the-man 'cos we can ....

and that none of these is neutered by the timing of the withdrawal vs the payment.
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Re: Best Credit Card

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Absolutely. I only posted the update about the cash advance fee because initially I thought I had avoided it. I don't consider $5 to withdraw cash from an overseas ATM to be unreasonable, especially since they're not also charging me an extra 2.5% "because we can and you're probably too stupid to notice anyway" FX surcharge.
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Re: Best Credit Card

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Bylo Selhi wrote: Yes. The experiment was to wait until the prepayment was shown on Chase's site, i.e. they had my money, before withdrawing (some of) it via ATM, i.e. so they'd have no defensible excuse for charging me an advance fee.
Thank you.
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Re: Best Credit Card

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AFAIK it's standard practice in Canada for CC companies to charge a cash advance fee to withdraw a positive cash balance. I'm not aware of any card that doesn't charge it.
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Re: Best Credit Card

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Current traveling in Germany / Austria / Italy and ran into another FX twist - when I paid my hotel bill and ran the charge through to my Visa card, the hotel "conveniently" converted the Euro charges into Canadian $ for me,coincidentally collecting the FX vig of 2.5% for their account rather than the card company. I had seen this on cruise line bills before, but never an individual hotel. I did not notice at the time or I would have told them to reverse the charge (it's not that I'm paying more to have them do the conversion, but they did not ask me first).
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Re: Best Credit Card

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westinvest wrote:Current traveling in Germany / Austria / Italy and ran into another FX twist - when I paid my hotel bill and ran the charge through to my Visa card, the hotel "conveniently" converted the Euro charges into Canadian $ for me,coincidentally collecting the FX vig of 2.5% for their account rather than the card company.
Same thing happened to me last year at a retail store in Austria. I didn't see that this "convenient" option had been applied until I got the printed receipt. The clerk claimed it was too late to reverse the transaction. As the amount of the sale was only about €100 I didn't push the matter further.

P.S. Years ago I returned a rental car at DFW and paid by credit card using the convenient hand-held terminal that the roving agent offered me. After I'd OK'd the transaction I noticed that they'd charged me for mileage even though my contract was for "unlimited" mileage. I went to the rental counter and complained. They reversed the entire transaction, then charged the correct amount. When I got my VISA statement I noted that I'd been charged 2.5% vig three times, (1) original transaction, (2) reversal and (3) corrected transaction. A phone call to VISA got (1) and (2) refunded, however, I doubt many people notice let alone complain.
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Re: Best Credit Card

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westinvest wrote:Current traveling in Germany / Austria / Italy and ran into another FX twist - when I paid my hotel bill and ran the charge through to my Visa card, the hotel "conveniently" converted the Euro charges into Canadian $ for me,coincidentally collecting the FX vig of 2.5% for their account rather than the card company. I had seen this on cruise line bills before, but never an individual hotel. I did not notice at the time or I would have told them to reverse the charge (it's not that I'm paying more to have them do the conversion, but they did not ask me first).
I've been asked this a few times in Europe and always declined. It sounds like you came out none for the worse, I've always been afraid it will lead to several conversions.

Many years ago I can recall using a USD card to make a USD purchase online and them charging me in CAD only for it to be converted back to USD on the card at a total cost of around 5%.
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Re: Best Credit Card

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westinvest wrote:Current traveling in Germany / Austria / Italy and ran into another FX twist - when I paid my hotel bill and ran the charge through to my Visa card, the hotel "conveniently" converted the Euro charges into Canadian $ for me,coincidentally collecting the FX vig of 2.5% for their account rather than the card company. I had seen this on cruise line bills before, but never an individual hotel. I did not notice at the time or I would have told them to reverse the charge (it's not that I'm paying more to have them do the conversion, but they did not ask me first).
Further update to this - have been traveling for a few weeks now and it seems this practice is becoming the norm rather than the exception, in both Europe and in Asia, I have had 7 or 8 hotels try this gambit - I now know to check before I sign the CC slip. My hotel in Hong Kong was nice enough to have the fine print printed on the receipt:
"This service is offered by the merchant's service provider, with FX rate at Visa rate plus 4.4%." Ouch!
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Re: Best Credit Card

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westinvest wrote:I now know to check before I sign the CC slip.
What if they hand you a Chip & PIN terminal? Presumably you won't see the slip until after you've authorized the transaction and it prints out of the terminal. (In my experience in Austria with this scam last year that's what happened. I didn't see any mention about added vig when I OK'd the transaction and keyed in my PIN.)
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Re: Best Credit Card

Post by kcowan »

We used our CIBC Aerogold card throughout Croatia, Istanbul and Zurich, almost exclusively through handheld authorization terminals and the amounts were always in local currency. It appears they hold cash payments until there is sufficent activity to warrant applying the payment. So my payment of $100 was received on 9/28 and posted on 10/2. We will see about my latest one.
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