US credit card use in London
 

Not sure I totally understand this, so I will just toss out the numbers
from my statement, all transactions seem to have "about" the same
percent charge, this transaction occured on Aug 15, 2006 on a Chase
VISA card.

GBP 1271.18 x 1.89553071 + 72.28, charge on statement is US $ 2481.92

My calc shows the effective rate as 1.9524536258

*note when I worked out the first line by hand I got a difference of
72.36 instead of 72.28 as shown on the statement.

Bank of America ATM access through Barclays was GBP 250 for $477 which
is only 1.908, a MUCH better exchange rate.

Unfortunately both the credit cards we used were from Chase, so I don't
know how it compares. Anybody else have some recent transactions from
other credit card providers.

US credit card use in London
 

"Danglerb" wrote in message
oups.com...
Not sure I totally understand this, so I will just toss out the numbers
from my statement, all transactions seem to have "about" the same
percent charge, this transaction occured on Aug 15, 2006 on a Chase
VISA card.

GBP 1271.18 x 1.89553071 + 72.28, charge on statement is US $ 2481.92

My calc shows the effective rate as 1.9524536258

*note when I worked out the first line by hand I got a difference of
72.36 instead of 72.28 as shown on the statement.

Bank of America ATM access through Barclays was GBP 250 for $477 which
is only 1.908, a MUCH better exchange rate.

Unfortunately both the credit cards we used were from Chase, so I don't
know how it compares. Anybody else have some recent transactions from
other credit card providers.


Your Chase credit card appears to be charging a 2% fee on top of the 1% VISA
fee. Your ATM card appears to be charging only the 1% Cirrus/Plus fee. Note
that the credit card posting date (not the purchase date) is used for FX
conversion. Looking at Oanda it appears that the credit card posting date is
08/17 (1.89470) or 08/18 (1.89490). The ATM date appears to be your stated
date of 08/15 (1.89100). All sounds rather normal for credit cards and ATM
cards these days.

US credit card use in London
 

On 21 Aug 2006 18:43:54 -0700, "Danglerb"
wrote:

Not sure I totally understand this, so I will just toss out the numbers
from my statement, all transactions seem to have "about" the same
percent charge, this transaction occured on Aug 15, 2006 on a Chase
VISA card.

GBP 1271.18 x 1.89553071 + 72.28, charge on statement is US $ 2481.92

I don't get it: what's the $72.28 charge?

My calc shows the effective rate as 1.9524536258

*note when I worked out the first line by hand I got a difference of
72.36 instead of 72.28 as shown on the statement.

Bank of America ATM access through Barclays was GBP 250 for $477 which
is only 1.908, a MUCH better exchange rate.

"Much better"? it's sensational these days, a system charge of
about 1.3%.

Unfortunately both the credit cards we used were from Chase, so I don't
know how it compares. Anybody else have some recent transactions from
other credit card providers.

It's a subject in a constant state of flux.

************* DAVE HATUNEN ) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *

US credit card use in London
 

Hatunen wrote:
On 21 Aug 2006 18:43:54 -0700, "Danglerb"
wrote:

Not sure I totally understand this, so I will just toss out the numbers
from my statement, all transactions seem to have "about" the same
percent charge, this transaction occured on Aug 15, 2006 on a Chase
VISA card.

GBP 1271.18 x 1.89553071 + 72.28, charge on statement is US $ 2481.92

I don't get it: what's the $72.28 charge?

The 1.89553071 shows on my statement as the exchange rate, and the
72.28 shows as "exchg rate adj". It appears to be a fixed percentage,
since another charge I have is GBP 7.50 x 1.874666666 + 0.42 for US $
14.48. Bottom line its the charge Chase makes to convert, and I do plan
to look a bit on their website for more details on it, but it isn't a
unreasonable conversion rate overall.

Maybe somebody else will post with results from a different CC.

US credit card use in London
 

"Danglerb" wrote in message
oups.com...

Hatunen wrote:
On 21 Aug 2006 18:43:54 -0700, "Danglerb"
wrote:

Not sure I totally understand this, so I will just toss out the numbers
from my statement, all transactions seem to have "about" the same
percent charge, this transaction occured on Aug 15, 2006 on a Chase
VISA card.

GBP 1271.18 x 1.89553071 + 72.28, charge on statement is US $ 2481.92

I don't get it: what's the $72.28 charge?

The 1.89553071 shows on my statement as the exchange rate, and the
72.28 shows as "exchg rate adj". It appears to be a fixed percentage,
since another charge I have is GBP 7.50 x 1.874666666 + 0.42 for US $
14.48. Bottom line its the charge Chase makes to convert, and I do plan
to look a bit on their website for more details on it, but it isn't a
unreasonable conversion rate overall.

Maybe somebody else will post with results from a different CC.


There is a % charge for international use on a lot of cards, actually most
cards. I think Citibank is 3% which is about the same as this charge.