Charges made by banks for using credit cards overseas for both purchases and cash withdrawals have been increasing for some time. We have long recommended the Caxton FX pre-paid currency cards, which are a much more economical way of spending cash abroad.
They have just become rather better value because the company no longer makes any charge for using ATMs. You load your card at the best possible rate (always better than rates obtainable from other exchange organisations) and spend it without any further charge.
A client inadvertently discovered just how competitive Caxton cards are when he was in Paris and, by mistake, used his Caxton Dollar card to withdraw Euros from a machine. This is definitely not how to use the cards, because you end up paying to convert into dollars and then from Dollars to Euros – plus, if you use the card in a different currency, an exchange fee is levied. While he was annoyed at his mistake, he later discovered the whole process had cost slightly less than all the extras Barclays added to a similar transaction on his sterling Visa debit card!
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