Cross border handeling fee

Zebrano

If i buy something from the uk with my ulster bank credit card but pay in euros will i still have to pay the cross border handeling fee.
Thanks.

Icepick

yeah, UB's rates for non-euro purchases are quite prohibitive

Zebrano

Icepick wrote: »

yeah, UB's rates for non-euro purchases are quite prohibitive

But if i pay in euro

Icepick

Zebrano wrote: »

But if i pay in euro

Then you are OK UB-wise. But in that case the vendor will in most cases give you a bad exchange rate so in the end you won't save anything or can pay more.

GerardKeating

Zebrano wrote: »

If i buy something from the uk with my ulster bank credit card but pay in euros will i still have to pay the cross border handeling fee.
Thanks.

Some American Card Issuers now charge an foreign fee for "foreign" USD transactions, but thankfully Irish/European card issues have not tried this yet.

But as another poster mentioned, depending on the FX rate the merchant will use, you might be better paying in the local currency an taking the hit from your card issuers. Amazon tends to be like this.

coylemj

Icepick wrote: »

Then you are OK UB-wise. But in that case the vendor will in most cases give you a bad exchange rate so in the end you won't save anything or can pay more.

This is certainly true in the case of Amazon UK - I have declined the offer of paying in Euros for the past three transactions. In each case I made a note of the euro amount they were offering, paid in sterling and in all three cases I paid less by letting Mastercard do the FX.

The moral of the story is that you pay the vendor in his local currency, let the CC company do the FX and you pay less. In almost all cases (especially with hotels), that is the way to do it.

Fred Swanson

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Icepick

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

No fees in eurozone countries only of course.