Comments on: Is Capital One’s Currency Exchange Accurate?

By: Laura

Laura — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 21:48:38 +0000

Sorry for the typo – that is, I made a purchase on my *Capital One card.*

By: Laura

Laura — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 21:47:26 +0000

I just made a purchase of 594 Tunisian dinars with my capital one ticket (for a plane ticket).

According to xe.com, my go-to website, that purchase should have posted as 424 USD. Instead, it posted at just over 440 USD.

I spoke at length to a representative on the phone who told me to look at the WSJ’s conversion rates and then admitted that he didn’t really know. He also attempted to redirect to Mastercard.

The Mastercard website – since my Capital One card does have a mastercard logo in the bottom right corner – lists the exchange rate between dinars and dollars at 0.7428; xe.com’s exchange rate is 0.724. This resulted in a ~$16 difference – doesn’t sound much better than a simple mastercard or visa, does it?

I’m hesitant now to use this card, as I’m living abroad and make quite a few purchases in North Africa. CA has been my go-to card, but I’ve never had a disappointing exchange rate before.

By: Awara

Awara — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 22:54:39 +0000

I am planning to buy a travel ticket within Europe thru a website. The website offers rate quotes in both British Pounds and American Dollars. The fare is either 225.00 BPD or $383.50 USD. As per today’s currency exchange rate, thru several websites (xe.com, x-rate.com, etc.) it’s about a $20 dollars difference. Now, to save these $20, I am thinking to use their BPD fare and pay by my Capital One card for which there’s (supposedly) no transaction fee. Should I expect Capital One to follow the current prevalent online rate or will I end up paying more than the $20 I am thinking to save so frugally?

By: Lloyd

Lloyd — Thu, 05 May 2011 00:33:48 +0000

Jim, have you looked at OANDA’s site for an interbank rate on the days you did transactions? This is a good benchmark.

By: Scott

Scott — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 19:38:20 +0000

I use my CapOne card for overseas web purchases all the time. Most of the time the price I am quoted by the overseas website is the same amount I am charged on my CapOne CC. However, every once in a while, Cap1 exchange rate varies about 0.5% above the original quoted estimate the foreign vendor quoted me originally. The extra 1/2 percent is always in CapOne’s favor, which is a bit suspicious, but its such a small amount and happens only intermittently (perhaps one time out of five) I never worry about it. In my case, this discrepancy is still far below the 1-3% service fees I have experienced with all my other CCs (Citi, Discover, BoA, and AmEx).

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 03:00:48 +0000

Not surprising! Another marketing ploy to trick the unwary consumer. I hate banks.

By: Anthony

Anthony — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 19:13:09 +0000

I just returned from Beijing and the exchange rate used by my Capital One MasterCard is 3% worse than the rate published for the same date by MasterCard on its web site. It is also 3% worse than the exchange rate used on my Visa card (to which fees were then deducted). Specifically, on October 23rd Capital one used a Chinese Yuan exchange rate of 0.155 whereas MasterCard, Visa, and the Wall St Journal give a rate of 0.150 for that date.

By: Belay On

Belay On — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 22:11:30 +0000

I would like to follow up on Tuxster’s post (see above). I called my credit card company (REI Visa) and Capital One to compare exchange rates and foreign exchange fees. Turns out that even though my credit card charges me a 2% fee, their foreign exchange rate is more than 2% better than Capital One. So despite not charging a FX fee, Capital One’s exchange rate is less favorable so the net difference is minimal between the two cards. Would love to know if anyone else has had a similar / different experience.

By: David

David — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:18:17 +0000

Check out http://www.ccfsettlement.com for latest updates. Court approval granted on 10/22/09, but looks like there are a few more legal t’s to crossed before any checks are issued.

By: Michele

Michele — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 22:15:18 +0000

I have not held a capital one card for years. Lets just say they never did right by me. However, I was traveling in Canada last spring and I used a CC for “incidentals” at the hotel I checked in. I had paid in advance for the room via hotwire.

Upon checkout, I noticed that they charged the room to my bill, thus double billing me. Despite the fact that I called it to their attention immediately, and they corrected the mistake before I left the hotel, the credit card company took 11 days to credit my account.

They charged me an exchange fee for the first transaction (the mistaken billing), they charged me a second exchange fee for the reversal, and by the time they got around to crediting my account, the rate had dropped and I got back around 6 dollars less than I originally paid. So in the entire transaction I ended up losing around $12, for the hotels mistake. I just love cc companies.

By: jillianlou

jillianlou — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 02:12:24 +0000

I consider myself pretty financially savvy but have to say I have never quite understood currency exchange rates. Multiply that by a bunch when dealing with credit cards…

By: SteveRay

SteveRay — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 04:09:19 +0000

It’s interesting that this thread seems for the most part to be generally favorable to Capital One.

Capital One conspicuously avoided responding to my email inquiries about the source it uses for determining foreign exchange rates on credit card transactions — even mentioning in its last reply that it felt it had responded appropriately to my inquiry and would not respond to any further inquiries on the topic. (That, by the way, was after explicitly not answering my question.)

That doesn’t strike me as an encouraging approach to potential credit card customers, and suggests Capital One isn’t interested in being above-board about its policies.

By: eric

eric — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 07:18:45 +0000

I loved my Capital One card when I was traveling.

By: joe

joe — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 03:43:25 +0000

Any update(s) on the Currency Conversion Fee Antitrust Litigation (MDL 1409) Settlement? That thing is almost 2 years old, and I still haven’t heard back or received anything about it?!?

By: joruva

joruva — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 09:29:05 +0000

I live overseas and swear by CapitalOne. I’ve done the research, and most credit cards charge anywhere from 2 to 5-percent of the purchase price (Amex and Mastercard are among the worst).

CapitalOne’s exchange rate is better than when I do an international wire transfer.