[gabemart]

Similarly, for Amex in the UK: you can use your card abroad, but they charge you 3% (!) on top of their own exchange rate - even for USD transactions.

What's worse - if your foreign transaction is in any other currency than USD, they convert twice: once from the original currency into USD, and then again from USD into GBP. They only charge you 3% once, but you do suffer from their internal, presumably self-serving exchange rates twice.

This is in an environment where there are many UK credit cards offering fee-free foreign transactions at the "true" (no spread) exchange rate, and many more offering true exchange rate + less than 1%.

The Amex offering is laughably poor in comparison.

[awfgylbcxhrey]

The best deal I've found for international use is Schwab. I forget the purchasing terms, but for ATM access they don't charge a currency conversion fee, and they even reimburse you the mandatory 1% fee.

[tim333]

That's terrible. Really enjoying using Monzo abroad which gives pretty much the interbank rate with no fees. YC alumni run startups for the win.