Hydro wrote:hahahaha roots you're pretty cool actually

haha true that, with that moving arrow to boot too!

Sure

double post

no idea why this keeps happening..

LOL. the Barclay black card!
they offered me one last year, i took it, cuz some whacky stores don't take amex.
i just wish it did not actually say "black card" on it

Isn't using a foreign credit card expensive with the currency conversion fees, etc.? Or is there a particular card that has lower fees for this? I'm no longer in China but curious.
Our card ended up being 4% more expensive so we tried to avoid using it on a regular basis. My husband's company deposited a designated part of his check into our ICBC account and we used a combination of the Union Pay debit card and cash to pay for everything. There were times when we were making multiple daily trips to the ATM to withdraw enough money to pay for a vacation but for the most part it worked well. We had a Bank of America account in the US so could do fee-free withdrawls at China Construction Bank ATMs.

tnmom wrote:Isn't using a foreign credit card expensive with the currency conversion fees, etc.? Or is there a particular card that has lower fees for this? I'm no longer in China but curious.

I travel a ton so I did alot of research on that.

The only major USA creditcard that does NOT charge any foreign transaction fee, is CapitalOne, it also gave you the correct inter-bank exchange rate.

Other cards, either charge a 3% transaction fee, or they convert your charges to USD with a sh1tty exchange rate to include that 3% in.

The one exception, is Discover. It is affiliated with China unionpay. So if you use that in China where unionpay is accepted, no fees either.

Hope that helps.

I was in the Nanjing Road Market and one stall took my Visa credit card! The lady was so casual about it "of course we take-a card-a".

And yes I've checked my statements and nothing untoward has happened so far!

It's a modern metropolis, why would they not take foreign cards???? Especially with a little thing called the Expo coming up? (not sure if you've heard of it, it's been kinda low key)

The only major USA creditcard that does NOT charge any foreign transaction fee, is CapitalOne, it also gave you the correct inter-bank exchange rate.

It takes a whole lot of leverage( a pretty hefty spending rate, which Mrs P1ATL10 had already established a pretty good track record on....), and a bit of patience to get through to someone who can actually make a decision....

But,...
I used a Chase UAL Miles Visa for 4 years....no Foreign Fees, and a decent exchange rate.

miss_t wrote: And yes I've checked my statements and nothing untoward has happened so far!

some companies charge you all the foreign transactions fee at the end of statement cycle. If you do not see any fees then, and they give you 1USD to 6.81+RMB exchange rate. Please let me know what kinda card it is. thanks.

p1atl10 wrote: ... It takes a whole lot of leverage( a pretty hefty spending rate, which Mrs P1ATL10 had already established a pretty good track record on....), and a bit of patience to get through to someone who can actually make a decision.....

Believe or not, i have a friend, who actually got Amex to waive annual fee on his Centurion card. He doesn't even spend all that much on it.
I tried and they basically said No to me in the nicest possible way :lol::lol:

I guess everything is possible, with some luck or other unknown factors.

fWerrF wrote:

miss_t wrote: And yes I've checked my statements and nothing untoward has happened so far!

some companies charge you all the foreign transactions fee at the end of statement cycle. If you do not see any fees then, and they give you 1USD to 6.81+RMB exchange rate. Please let me know what kinda card it is. thanks.

No I meant fraudulant activity as some of my friends were surprised when I said I paid for goods in the Market with my card. They assumed it wouldve skimmed etc etc

Mine is a UK card anyway, has a 2% fee per transaction, but I factor it in to the price of the goods.