London Trip - Credit Card Advice

[Brainonska511]

I'm looking to go to London for about a week in the fall and have a question about credit cards. I have 3 cards at the moment, but all of them have a 2-3% foreign transaction fee.

Are there any decent fee-free (even if its only waived for a year, because I don't really have a problem opening one and then closing it later) cards that I should consider and would be accepted in most places?

 

[chowderhead]

I'm looking to go to London for about a week in the fall and have a question about credit cards. I have 3 cards at the moment, but all of them have a 2-3% foreign transaction fee.

Are there any decent fee-free (even if its only waived for a year, because I don't really have a problem opening one and then closing it later) cards that I should consider and would be accepted in most places?

Chase Sapphire Preferred

 

[Exterous]

Chase Sapphire Preferred

I'm a big fan of that card. The fee is waived for the first year but its about the only one I've kept after the first year due to the travel protections (Primary CDW, Class leading 6h baggage delay protection, full travel insurance even when paying for just a part of the ticket etc)

The Barclays Arrival card is another good one. Very easy rewards to use on travel, fee waived for the first year and I believe you can get this in Chip & PIN which can be helpful at automated terminals.

 

[herm0016]

i use my united explorer card over seas. $95 a year I think, waived for the first year. and if you can time it right, you can get round trip domestic tickets for 25k miles. no foreign transaction fees. also has chip and pin, which you need in a lot of places.

 

[dullard]

Fee free isn't necessarilly the best route to take for all credit card transactions. For example London food can be very pricey, especially if you like to eat at some higher end restaurants (London has many of the top 50 in the world). I'd gladly pay a 3% foreign transaction fee and then use a 5% off restaurant credit card. You end up ~2% ahead by paying the fee.

For non-credit card transactions, I like fee-free debit cards. I use Scottrade checking for that. Get all the cash you want at a great exchange rate and no fees.

 

[JEDI]

capital one - no foreign transaction fees, 1.5% cashback on everything

but yeah what dullard said about dining out and 5%.
Citibank has one of those cards. (forgot name)

discover and chase freedom has a 5% restaurants but it ends june 30th for both.
wished it was staggered like last years.
ie: discover 5% restaurants jan-mar, chase april - june

I wonder if there will be an analysis done on which of these 2 cards people used more during their restaurant promo.
I predict Discover will win. (and hopefully force chase to select a different time frame to run their restaurant promo next year.)

the Citibank restaurant card is 5% all year long but its rewards points.
10k rewards points = $100 walmart giftcard

 

[ViviTheMage]

Out of all the cards, I have kept my chase brit airways signature card. It always works, and avios points are pretty solid for flights in the US or anywhere from london to EU.

 

[Brainonska511]

Fee free isn't necessarilly the best route to take for all credit card transactions. For example London food can be very pricey, especially if you like to eat at some higher end restaurants (London has many of the top 50 in the world). I'd gladly pay a 3% foreign transaction fee and then use a 5% off restaurant credit card. You end up ~2% ahead by paying the fee.

For non-credit card transactions, I like fee-free debit cards. I use Scottrade checking for that. Get all the cash you want at a great exchange rate and no fees.

Yeah. I don't see myself really dining in high end places. Mainly going to visit some family and do touristy things. And my existing cards don't give more than 2-3% back at restaurants. So just looking to have something that will supplement cash I'll likely be carrying without getting hit with both exchanges rates favorable to the credit card company and the 3% foreign currency fee.

 

[kranky]

Keep in mind that if your card is chip-and-signature (vs. chip-and-PIN) then you might not be able to use it at places such as unattended ticket machines if that's an issue. Most US-issued cards with EMV chips are chip-and-signature.

 

[dullard]

discover and chase freedom has a 5% restaurants but it ends june 30th for both.
wished it was staggered like last years.
ie: discover 5% restaurants jan-mar, chase april - june

I wonder if there will be an analysis done on which of these 2 cards people used more during their restaurant promo.
I predict Discover will win. (and hopefully force chase to select a different time frame to run their restaurant promo next year.)

I used Chase for the most part. But then wedding season came around and started getting the 5% off on Bed Bath and Beyond. That brought me close to the spending limit on Chase (only the first $1500 gets 5% back in a 3 month period and my wife ate at some high end London restaurants). So I was forced to switch to Discover.

 

[slayer202]

use an ATM and cash

 

[DannyBoy]

Barclays.

 

[Humpy]

I like the Barclays card too. It's chip and pin and has always worked.

 

[gevorg]

Even with no foreign transaction fee on your CC, the bank can still screw you with the exchange rate.

 

[Brainonska511]

Even with no foreign transaction fee on your CC, the bank can still screw you with the exchange rate.

Yeah. That's why I'm looking for something to limit that screwing. I'm going to get hit somewhere, either in exchanging dollars to pounds and paying cash or in the exchange rate used on a credit transaction.

 

[drbrock]

I just got the citi prestige card for my next foreign trip. Get a ton of benefits and airport/hotel reimbursements. The 450 is not bad when you add up everything that you get. Especially for the first year.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

I was over there for three weeks used the Barclays card. Used it for airfare, AirBNB, restaurants, shopping and more.

 

[RossMAN]

Chase Sapphire Preferred

This.

http://www.creditcards.com/no-foreign-transaction-fee.php

 

[DaWhim]

capital one and discover are known to have no FTF.

the rest of issuers usually have annual fee.

I am not aware that credit card will put on extra spread on foreign rate to screw customer. you can use visa or master to check on the exchange rate on one particular date. by default, visa and mc do put on 1% spread on exchange rate. it is depends on your card issuer to eat the fee or pass it on to you.

here is the one for VISA.
http://usa.visa.com/personal/card-benefits/travel/exchange-rate-calculator.jsp

 

[Exterous]

Fee free isn't necessarilly the best route to take for all credit card transactions. For example London food can be very pricey, especially if you like to eat at some higher end restaurants (London has many of the top 50 in the world). I'd gladly pay a 3% foreign transaction fee and then use a 5% off restaurant credit card. You end up ~2% ahead by paying the fee.

Technically that could still be a bit behind the Barclays card as there is no FTF and you get 2.2% back when using towards travel related transactions. In addition a lot of the no FTF cards are geared more towards travel and often have better travel related benefits as well. For example the Chase Freedom (Often 5% at restaurants) does not come with Baggage delay insurance while the Barclays does, the trip cancellation is only $5pp up to $10k vs $250k (total) etc.

Even with no foreign transaction fee on your CC, the bank can still screw you with the exchange rate.

I have never encountered a major bank that screws you on the exchange rate. They have certainly been better than any money exchange place\kiosk I've seen and there aren't the ATM fees associated with debit cards (Although you can get a debit card from a place like Schwab that would reimburse thouse)

 

[Fingolfin269]

Some cards definitely have a bit of an edge over others. I basically feel like a lot of these are so close that you should just go with something that ties in with products you might actually use regularly. For example, if you fly on American Airlines often then get on of their cards. Southwest is the same. Plus one thing I like about southwest is that when you finally do have to pay the annual fee they offset it by crediting your account with miles.

 

[Brainonska511]

Some cards definitely have a bit of an edge over others. I basically feel like a lot of these are so close that you should just go with something that ties in with products you might actually use regularly. For example, if you fly on American Airlines often then get on of their cards. Southwest is the same. Plus one thing I like about southwest is that when you finally do have to pay the annual fee they offset it by crediting your account with miles.

That's kind of what I was thinking - find a card that has a decent initial bonus that I can actually fill with normal spending and the trip expenses (eg: not $4k spending in 3 months, because I can't do that; for the trip, I really only have to pay for the flight and day-to-day expenses when I'm there, as I'll be staying with my aunt) and maybe provide a few rewards when I'm overseas. But the annual fee isn't a big deal to me, as I'll probably just close the account a few months after my trip.

 

[repoman0]

I've had good luck with the Barclay Arrival+ one. The initial rewards bonus, at least last year when I signed up, was $3k in 3 months for 40000 points, which ends up being $440 off travel expenses .. I use it for most of my purchases unless one of my other cards provides more than 2.2% in some category. I've gotten over $1k back including that initial bonus in the past ~13 months from it, which really just means I've spent way too much

One thing I haven't quite figured out is the best way to get local currency. I just withdrawal at foreign ATMs using my credit union ATM/debit card .. seems like depending on the ATM, it asks it I want to convert and gives me an exchange rate, sometimes it converts automatically and doesn't ask, and I think sometimes it doesn't convert, which means it's on my credit union I'm assuming the best way is to let my credit union handle the conversion since I have more faith in their exchange rate than some random ATM operator, but it doesn't always provide that option.

I think London is mostly credit cards just like here in the US, but my last couple of trips have been Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic where they all use cash a lot more.