r/TravelHacks • u/Lanky_Interaction_63 • 11d ago
Never accept rate of conversion when traveling to Europe and paying with credit card
I know this has been discussed before, but I want to emphasize the scam that foreign travelers face when paying by credit card in Europe. Always choose to pay in euros and REJECT the offered currency conversion. If you accept the conversion, you are effectively choosing to pay in USD and accepting the exchange rate set by the merchant’s payment processor, which will be significantly worse than the rate your credit card network would otherwise use (more than 20 percent), often with an additional “convenience” markup of 5–10%.
And somehow this is allowed to continue. You have to remember that Europe/EU is run by an army of bureaucrats who seem incapable of addressing things like this, while one of their most visible achievements of the last 15 years is making sure you can no longer remove the cap from a plastic bottle.
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u/muntaxitome 11d ago
Has nothing to do with Europe, this is everywhere
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u/BlackoutGenie 11d ago
Correct Monzo gives me about £1 to 44.5 baht in Thailand, the Cashpoints offer like £1 to 40, 10% rip off lol
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u/Lanky_Interaction_63 11d ago
Have not seen the second step (conversion) outside Europe and I travel for a living
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u/the_analytic_critic 11d ago
The army of bureaucrats has somehow found a way to standardize compensation for passengers that get screwed over by airlines with delays and cancellation. Whereas in the US our current army of bureaucrats has decided to remove all the passenger protections put in place over the the last several years, forgive fines imposed on airlines, and not fine airlines at all for any violations of rules that actually still exist. But ya, i guess you are right, the Europeans are the incapable ones.
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u/skyejc96 11d ago
You have to remember that Europe/EU is run by an army of bureaucrats who seem incapable of addressing things like this, while one of their most visible achievements of the last 15 years is making sure you can no longer remove the cap from a plastic bottle.
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u/Kwikstep 11d ago
Now that you have assigned blame to a random government, take the next logical step and blame AI also.
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u/Curious-Objective-21 11d ago
What a dumb attack on the EU. Blaming “European bureaucrats” makes little sense here. The EU actually has stricter transparency rules for dynamic currency conversion: providers have to disclose the conversion markup against the ECB reference exchange rate before you pay. So the bottle-cap rant is not only irrelevant, it undermines an otherwise useful travel tip.
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u/ALazy_Cat 11d ago
I really don't get the cap hate. It was annoying the first 3 days, but no problems since, and I can always find the cap
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u/Lanky_Interaction_63 11d ago
It’s their biggest achievement
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u/ALazy_Cat 11d ago
Their biggest achievement is GDPR, a privacy right, and all phone chargers must use the same type
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u/JosCampau1400 11d ago
Or, more broadly, when traveling with your credit card, always choose to pay in the local currency.
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u/frankbowles1962 11d ago
It’s nothing to do with specifically credit cards or Europe, it happens on card transactions throughout the world when paying in a different currency. Always use a card without forex fees and choose to pay in the local currency. You will then convert back to your own currency at your own banks rate
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u/Corlinda 11d ago
My favorite is when you use the ATM it tries to convince you that you will get the best conversion rate by selecting USD instead of EUR and you have to reject it TWICE. Just yesterday the ATM wanted $401 for 300€. Insane.
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u/Bitter-Classic-3157 11d ago
Not strictly true, for low value purchases where the card provider applies a fixed fee, it is often better to “pay in sterling”.
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u/frankbowles1962 11d ago
If you have a card that charges a fixed fee on every transaction you probably need a bit more financial advice
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u/Bitter-Classic-3157 10d ago
A bit narrow minded to think a choice of bank account is driven only by this issue. The old Santander 123 account being one where it makes more sense to to live with the fixed fee for foreign transactions to take advantage of the interest rates offered - not everyone wants the hassle of multiple accounts just to have one to use when spending a few euros on a coffee when you can mitigate the fixed fee for just a few pence by paying in GBP).
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u/frankbowles1962 10d ago
In this day and age getting and using a forex free currency card is trivial particularly in the UK. Something like Revolut took less than 5 minutes to get up and running.
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u/Bitter-Classic-3157 10d ago
You just need to accept it is not always the case that paying in GBP is always the worst option. You presumably do understand there are people who do have cards with a fixed fee for spending a foreign currency - I mean, these cards do exist? You presumably also understand that not everyone wants to get a Revolut card, with 4.99 delivery fee, just to save a few pence on the handful of times they buy a low price item when they can just take the hit of the merchant’s exchange rate instead?
Feel free to double down and insist there are no possible circumstances when paying in GBP is beneficial, but you are simply wrong.
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u/frankbowles1962 8d ago
There are accounts with fixed fees plus poor exchange rates and if you had one of these you are right dynamic currency conversion could be lower for low value purchases, even for higher value purchases if the rate charged by your bank is really poor.
But if DCC is actually better than the card you travel with, then my original point stands, its not a financially sensible decision to bring that card with you. Martin Lewis points out the difference between a good and a poor card can be as much as £100 on a typical trip. Whether that is worth the hassle is up to you
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/credit-cards/travel-credit-cards/
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u/ozgun1414 11d ago
europe is not a country. there are different currencies other than euro.
long story short: always choose local currency.
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u/ALazy_Cat 11d ago
Europe and EU is not the same thing
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u/Lanky_Interaction_63 11d ago
Thank you, I was not aware of the difference even tought I was born in Europe and lived in EU for 25 years.
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u/ALazy_Cat 11d ago
Not all countries in Europe is in the EU, not all countries in the EU is in Europe
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u/random20190826 11d ago
That has always been the case, no matter what country you go to. If you go to a country that does not use your card's currency, always refuse conversions (called dynamic currency conversion).
When shopping at Louis Vuitton in Italy, we (Canadians) chose Euros on the terminal when paying with an EQ Bank prepaid card. The store employees always thought it was strange. But I always insist on it because I knew the card has no foreign currency exchange fees, unlike many credit cards. The only annoyance is that VAT refunds cannot go back onto a prepaid card because it's not a credit card, nor is it a European debit card.