Credit card foreign transaction/fee charges?

Four of a kind

Anyone know typically how much the transaction chargers are for withdrawing money from your card(in credit) while out in the likes of asia?

Will be travelling there in june for a few months so want to get fully up to date on what charges I will incur etc.

Thanks

BuffyBot

Non-eurozone transactions are generally* 2.75% of so

* Check with your card issuer to be sure.

Leslie91

If u put the cash into your credit card before u go you don't get charged any interest by your card issuer. If your current account card has a masetro or cirrus on it and you are withdrawing yoyos there should be no charge.

cagefactor

Leslie91 wrote: »

If your current account card has a masetro or cirrus on it and you are withdrawing yoyos there should be no charge.

Actually that's completely inaccurate for Bank of Ireland anyways.

On your current account you will be charged per withdrawl. In Asia for a 100 euro withdrawl your looking at between 2.5 euro and 3.50 euro cash withdrawl fee. The BOI currency rate is actually quite good (close to xe.com) when I check my statement.

09 DEC 2010 C0712UY859.40@.037991 32.65
CIR CHRG UYU 859 3.17
You can see here I was charged 3.17 for taking out just 30 euro's from my current account. I've been to over 50 countries with work and 3.17 is always appearing on my card.

I heard people saying if you load cash on your credit card you won't be charged but I'm skeptical as most credit card companies charge you a fee for Cash Advance (American Express do anyways).

Here's the output from my mastercard.
23 NOV 2010 FIRST DATA CONO MONTEVIDEO 54.70


1459.70UYU RATE 26.685623 NOV 2010 CASH ADVANCE FEE
2.54

gustafo

Leslie91 wrote: »

If u put the cash into your credit card before u go you don't get charged any interest by your card issuer. If your current account card has a masetro or cirrus on it and you are withdrawing yoyos there should be no charge.

Well you are right that was the case for a long time when i was in asia but then all of a sudden around 2 years ago my AIB credit card started taking 2.75% for each transaction and i never went into credit my card always had been topped up with cash plus you have to pay the local banks charged also.

Ponster

Four of a kind wrote: »

Anyone know typically how much the transaction chargers are for withdrawing money from your card(in credit) while out in the likes of asia?

It all depends on who you bank with.

Four of a kind

Ponster wrote: »

It all depends on who you bank with.

I'm with BOI.

Basically myself and my OH will have €12,000 to last us 5 months travelling in asia and obviously making sure we have the financial side of things in order is very important.

My bank card has cirrus on it, but I heard that you get charged crazy ATM fees over when you use them to take out local currencies etc.?

Really would like peoples views on how best to go about bringing our money for the trip??

Ponster

Charges for using your card abroad

Cirrus/Maestro transactions in euro within the EU and certain non-EU countries to which the relevant EU regulations apply are charged at the same rate as domestic ATM/Laser transactions. Where account transactions fees are free as part of a package these euro transactions are also free.

All other Cirrus and Maestro transactions are charged as follows and are not included free as part of any packages or fee waivers:

Cirrus (ATM) transactions - there is a 3.5% transaction charge with a minimum of €3.17 and a maximum of €11.43 per transaction
Maestro (Point-of-Sale) transactions - there is a 1.75% transaction charge with a minimum of €0.46 and a maximum of €11.43 per transaction
Some retailers do not operate a cashback policy
The Bank will charge to the account the amount of any Government duty payable in respect of the card.
Full details of all fees and charges can be found in our Schedule of Fees and Charges for Personal Customers (PDF, 252KB) (available from any Bank of Ireland branch) and Schedule of International Banking Charges (available from any Bank of Ireland branch). For Cirrus/ATM transactions, at some cash machines, you may be required to undertake more than one transaction to withdraw your full daily limit.
Depending on the Current Account fee option/account package you are availing of.

cagefactor

cool, makes sense why I have hundreds of 3.17 fee's on my account.

imme

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056139819

http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?t=23077

Four of a kind

Ok well I'm not fully sure I understand which is the best option for me to go with.

Say I load up €12000 onto my BOI MasterCard and head off to Asia. Every week I want to withdraw the equivalent of €500 in local currency in one withdrawal to last the both of us for the week. What charges will I incur every time I di this from both my cc company and local ATM fees??

Ponster

Four of a kind wrote: »

What charges will I incur every time I did this from both my cc company and local ATM fees??

€11.43 according to my post if you use Cirrus.

Four of a kind

Ponster wrote: »

€11.43 according to my post if you use Cirrus.

its alot in fairness, but sure there's no other solution

And I'm told in Thailand there's a 150bath(€3.75) fee for all ATM transactions on top on credit card/bank card charges :mad::mad:

And Vietnam has a max single ATM withdrawal of $125 which makes multiple transactions unavoidable :mad::mad:

Ponster

Four of a kind wrote: »

And Vietnam has a max single ATM withdrawal of $125 which makes multiple transactions unavoidable :mad::mad:

It still works out at about €12 per 500 you withdraw.

That's not a lot for the fact that you're able to withdraw your money half ways across the world.

When I first went to the States I had to take travelers cheques as ATMS weren't really an option.

dearg lady

Four of a kind wrote: »

Ok well I'm not fully sure I understand which is the best option for me to go with.

Say I load up €12000 onto my BOI MasterCard and head off to Asia. Every week I want to withdraw the equivalent of €500 in local currency in one withdrawal to last the both of us for the week. What charges will I incur every time I di this from both my cc company and local ATM fees??

Just, a note on this, apparently if you 'load up' money on to your credit card it's not covered if the card were stolen. What I did was transfer maybe 500 on to my credit card from current account at a time so there was never too much on it.

undo

Four of a kind wrote: »

Say I load up €12000 onto my BOI MasterCard and head off to Asia.

Be careful with that. I get a good rate for money parked on my credit card and so had around €10k parked on it. Then I noticed some fishy transactions - someone had stolen my CC details and was stealing my money. I reacted quickly, blocked the card and after a few weeks of investigation, the bank refunded me the money. I would have not liked to go through this while far away and relying on access to this money for day-to-day living. A credit/debit card is not a safe place to keep a large amount of money. I would say you are much safer keeping only say €1000 on the card and the rest in your bank account. Each time you withdraw money from an ATM, top up your card using online banking. This way, in the case that some rogue ATM or retailer snatches your card details, the majority of your funds is still safe.

Edit: I see dearg lady posted a similar comment a few hours ago (I opened this thread earlier in the day, did not reload before replying now). In my case, the stolen money was refunded by the bank but this was not an Irish credit card, so it might be different for OP. Also, even if the bank does refund the money in the end, it would be painful to wait for weeks and months when you need the money to pay for food and accommodation...