Comments on: Foreign Currency Transaction Fees List

By: Jim

Jim — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 19:46:52 +0000

Mark, you’re not beating a dead horse at all, this was a good exercise for me. CapitalOne only puts the conversion rate on the paper statement (or the online PDF), so I looked at conversion rates of GBP/USD for that period. The tricky part about the statement is that it shows when the transaction was posted, not when it actually happened so I have two transactions on 20 July with different conversion rates. One transaction actually transacted 19 July and the other was actually 20 July, here’s how they compared:

19 July – Listed Rate = 0.61216, CapOne Rate = 0.614203455
20 July – Listed Rate = 0.60485, CapOne Rate = 0.607533414

In the 19 July rate, the difference was 0.3% in CapitalOne’s favor. In the 20 July rate, the difference was 0.44% in CapitalOne’s favor.

Incidentally, I had another 20 July transaction that got a 0.607679466 rate (same day, difference in time by about four hours).

I used the rates quoted from the site you mentioned and it appears to be within half a percent accuracy.

I hope that helps, please don’t hesitate to keep asking.

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 18:40:57 +0000

Jim – thank you. Sorry to beat the dead horse (my wife regularly refers to me with the “A” word), but I was looking at historical US/Euro rates for the first (2) weeks of Aug. and note that they fluctuated (officially) between approx. 1.413 and 1.442. I would be curious to know if, during this time, the CO exchange rates on your statement generally fell within this range. Below is a link to where I found this data – if you have any purchases that cleared on one of the days you were there, you could certainly compare it with one of the table entries to see how close it was, if it’s not too much trouble. I don’t know whether these table entries constitute a daily average, open or close, but I don’t think the rate varies that much (lately) intra-day, so your comparison will probably be within a half percent accuracy or better, I’d guess. Thanks again! http://www.exchange-rates.org/history/USD/EUR/T

By: Cheap Bastard

Cheap Bastard — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 06:37:12 +0000

Folks- The Charles Schwab card is better than the Cap One because it rebates 2% (cap one is only 1%).

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 04:03:56 +0000

Mark – As far as I can tell, the rates are consistent with published rates. In fact, on your bill, they tell you the rate they used on each transaction. I can’t confirm that the rates were identical because I didn’t compare them on a day to day basis (and I suspect they aren’t a daily match).

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 23:51:57 +0000

Jim – you are probably the best qualified to answer this, having just returned from Europe. I recently received my Capital One card and am headed to Europe in Oct. Can you tell me whether the exchange rates CO applied to your euro purchases was consistent with those published in the WSJ, cnbc.com, investor’s business daily, etc. or was actually higher? Customer svc. at CO told me that they would be using these same published rates, but others on this board seem to believe this isn’t true. I’d love to hear it straight from you.
Thanks!

By: Jim

Jim — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 09:29:47 +0000

I’m in Europe now (returning home tomorrow) and we’ve been using a Capital One card exclusively.

By: Cherie

Cherie — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 00:39:06 +0000

I’m hoping that you will do an August 2009 review of the currency conversion and fee rates that credit cards charge in foreign lands. I am going to Europe in October and wish to know which cc I should use.

Thanks!

By: Jim

Jim — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 22:22:23 +0000

I currently don’t have any relationship with capital one other than having a credit card. Read the USA Today article before throwing out such accusations please.

By: Bill

Bill — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 15:44:58 +0000

Jim Wang obviously works for or is connected to Capital One. Read his other posts. It has been well substantiated here by other posters that Capital One uses a higher conversion rate than its competitors thus making the “free foreign transaction fee” a misnomer. It appears that Wang has an ulterior motive.

By: Rebecca

Rebecca — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 22:39:28 +0000

Would love to know the same data for Canadian Banks – these extra fees really push my buttons!

By: Cheap Bastard

Cheap Bastard — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 07:54:12 +0000

Another thought… Capital One doesn’t do the conversion, do they? I think the conversion is done by visa, because visa charges 1% commission to Capital One (who then eats the fee).

By: Cheap Bastard

Cheap Bastard — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 07:48:24 +0000

Andy, I used the calculator at http://www.xe.com/ccc/ to compute the cap one fees, and that tool determined that cap one charged around -1.3% on top of the wholesale exchange rate. Who knows what interbank rate they get (it seems all banks try not to disclose that), but I suspect that sometimes the difference will work in your favor, as it did for me. BTW, consider getting a Charles Schwab credit card. The schwab card also has zero commission on currency exchange, plus you get rebated 2% into a brokerage account. So schwab is the better deal because the kickback is higher. Check out http://flyerguide.com/wiki/index.php/Credit/Debit/ATM_Cards_and_Foreign_Exchange because Cap one and Discover are not the only banks offering zero commission.

By: Andy

Andy — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 18:39:52 +0000

Capital One claims to not apply any fees to currency conversion when using their credit card for international charges. My experience with Capital One has been that they do not convert the currency using the daily bank rates and that Capital One uses conversions that are at higher rates than the daily bank rate and that is how they can claim they do not charge a currency conversion fee. I have taken international travel in 2008 to a number of countries and used the Capital One credit card only to find out that after I receive my Capital One statement, the currency conversion is significantly higher than that used by several other banks. When trying to resolve my issue/concern with Capital One, they first claimed they used the daily exchange rates from Wall Street Journal. When I have provided the daily currency conversion exchange rates provided by the Wall Street Journal, they then claim to use another source. When requesting their source, they claim their conversion rate is determined from multiple sources and refuse to provide their “multiple sources.” I believe I have lost hundreds of dollars from Capital One as a result of my international charges that actually reflect currency conversion rates that are much higher than the rate provided at other banks. If you plan to use a credit card for international charges, I recommend that you contact Capital One to determine how they determine their source(s) for currency conversion and make sure they document the conversion for you, so that when you receive your credit card statement, it will reflect a verifiable conversion rate. Unfortunately, I suspect Capital One will not be willing to provide you the information to your satisfaction. Good luck.

By: Ray

Ray — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 17:58:31 +0000

Had same problem as Bill F. On two trips to Hong Kong within the past year, Capital One denyied the card despite our calling ahead both times with our travel dates and destination. When I called from Hong Kong, Capital One acknowledged having a record of our calling ahead, but one large charge on our second day triggered their security dept. blocking charges — apparently they don’t check whether you had called ahead or not. Had to call from HK to correct — although they do accept collect calls for this.
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By: elman

elman — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 22:31:34 +0000

I just found out another thing. In Canada, Visa/Mastercard will charge 1% conversion fee and the bank will charge their conversion fee ~1.8-2.5% ***ON TOP*** of the 1%, so in Canada the actual foreign exchange conversion rate is 2.8-3.5%