credit card charges.

Hi, just wondering if someone could give some advice on their experiences using a Virgin Atlantic AmEx credit card vs the BA AmEx credit card.

For years I have had a VS AmExpress card and earned points towards flying club miles. I then changed over to a BA AmExpress card which I have used continually on my recent holiday to the US

My statement has just come in and I am shocked at the +Commission Fees added to each and every purchase I made :0

The Virgin Atlantic AmExpress card issued by MBNA never did this when I used it last April 2012 - they always just converted the $ amount into £'s with no fees or charges.

Any opinions on this please. I was wondering if The Virgin AmEx card has introduced similar fees also?

Virgin Amex does come with buried commission charges for the transactions conducted in other currencies.

I agree it isn't very clear on the statements though, almost folded into the bable in brackets detailing the exchange rate calculation. No doubt there will be one line buried in the T&Cs to exonerate them from people trying to claim it back though.

Good news, I guess, is that you earn miles on the 'commission fee' as it is folded into the total, don't get that with Visa

Thanks for the reply Joey but a few extra miles on the commission fees totalling nearly £300 is not much compensation I am afraid.

It really makes a joke of some of my purchases, the ipad certainly would have been cheaper in London than the one I got from the Apple store in LV !

Honestly I have looked back on my many previous VS statements and I was quite happy with the exchange rates they offered when transferring $ to £.

Needless to say, the BA credit card is going into storage n( and the VS one is being dusted off

[Neil]

You do get charged a conversion fee on the VS card, they just don't itemise it like some other cards do.

You do get charged a conversion fee on the VS card, they just don't itemise it like some other cards do.

Thanks Neil. I guess in my case if I couldn't see the amount itemised then I didn't think about the fees ii)

I might be wrong but I am sure that VS don't such extortionate fees though.

I believe the VS Amex card charges a 2.75% fee and the BA Amex 2.99%.

I believe the VS Amex card charges a 2.75% fee and the BA Amex 2.99%.

Thanks for that info.

Obviously not a much between the two. The VS credit card T&C's says about the fee "and we will add the service charge to the converted amount and apply it to your account.

Perhaps that is a little sneaky not showing the charge up front but firstly they say that's what they are going to do and secondly I guess in my case what I couldn't see did not bother me :w I had never really thought about commission fees before. I just freaked out to see all the extra £'s being charged, with nothing to show for it. More cash currencies next time y)

Thats for your replies folks

Saga credit card no transaction fee and good exchange rates.

[Neil]

Bit off topic, but I dont think VS charges for using their Black Amex anymore, well thats my experience booking flights over the phone.

This thread is actually about the conversion charge, for transactions made in $ and then converted to £.

Interested to note however about the charge for booking on a CC. Hasn't a new law/regulation come in to force meaning that airlines can only charge you what it actually costs them rather than just a blanket % that they chose and quite clearly made money on.

That's correct Neil but the 'get out' is that if CC card X charges a % rather than a fixed amount we will still get 'stung'. The issue is that the retailer cannot pass on more than this cost to the customer.

BBC article and the regulations

As to the rates yes the conversion fee is annoying but I've found on checking the total cost and working out the exchange rate that more often than not it's pretty much in line with the rate used when I've exchanged £ for $ i.e. the tourist rate rather than the money market rate.

As to the rates yes the conversion fee is annoying but I've found on checking the total cost and working out the exchange rate that more often than not it's pretty much in line with the rate used when I've exchanged £ for $ i.e. the tourist rate rather than the money market rate.

If you use Visa there's a site you can go to where the 'official' rate is shown and you can then add in your provider's commission rate to arrive at the adjusted rate that appears on your statement.

As you say, the rate is no worse than the gouging you'd get exchanging cash.

If you do a lot of travel and/or other purchases in foreign currency (eg via the web) then it's definitely worthwhile obtaining a Credit Card that's good for travel. There are issuers out there - SAGA, the Post Office, Nationwide are ones that come to mind - who use the official rate (which is more or less the city rate) and add nothing at all to it. So you effectively save that 2.75 - 3% on every currency transaction you make over a more typical card, and an average of around 5% over getting currency or travellers cheques or a pre-loaded card.

Use one of the popular money comparision sites to choose. For anyone aged 55 or over, the SAGA card is by far the best, because (uniquely, I think) they don't charge any interest on cash advances; they are subject to a 2% levy only and are then otherwise treated as purchases, with a normal interest-free period. That means using the SAGA card in a fee-free ATM is cheapest way to obtain foreign cash.

If you do a lot of travel and/or other purchases in foreign currency (eg via the web) then it's definitely worthwhile obtaining a Credit Card that's good for travel.

A good bit of advice in your post however would like to add a bit of experience from myself. I travel over to the states a fair amount, business and pleasure, and became weary of the CC commission charges long ago. Solution, had a word with my bank and they set me up a dollar currency account which I can transfer funds into at market rates as opposed to retail ones and of course carries no exchange commission when I spend over there. Same thing could be done with any currency although to make it worth the time and effort there would have to be a good amount of travel to the country involved.

That all being said, the little mileage devil is always present and the commission charges on my amex cards are sometimes worth the miles received on larger transactions

If you do a lot of travel and/or other purchases in foreign currency (eg via the web) then it's definitely worthwhile obtaining a Credit Card that's good for travel. There are issuers out there - SAGA, the Post Office, Nationwide are ones that come to mind - who use the official rate (which is more or less the city rate) and add nothing at all to it. So you effectively save that 2.75 - 3% on every currency transaction you make over a more typical card, and an average of around 5% over getting currency or travellers cheques or a pre-loaded card.

The Nationwide Visa Gold card charges a 1% fee on transactions outside the Eurozone.

Edited to add....and as Joey says the points equation made it worth using my Amex for the accommodation even with a stiff fee.

One thing that did happen to us for the first time was ATMs rejecting our cash (not credit) cards. Almost immediately though we had automated calls from our banks going through a security check that included identification of the address of the bank where we were attempting the transaction. Slightly irritating at the time, but good to know they are on the ball and I guess a call to them in advance of the trip would have sorted it.

Hi again. Did a bit of calculating with both VS & BA flying clubs in realtion to 'buying miles'.

In both cases I could have bought the same amount of miles which I earned on my current BA AmEx statement at nearly £50 cheaper. So the +commission fees on the credit cards doesn't cover the bonus of gaining miles against purchase spends.

However it does seem that the currency conversion rate used when transferring $ to $ was a few cents higher than the daily tourist rate at that time, so guess it might be a swings vs roundabout case ii)

Hi again. Did a bit of calculating with both VS & BA flying clubs in realtion to 'buying miles'.

In both cases I could have bought the same amount of miles which I earned on my current BA AmEx statement at nearly £50 cheaper. So the +commission fees on the credit cards doesn't cover the bonus of gaining miles against purchase spends.

However it does seem that the currency conversion rate used when transferring $ to $ was a few cents higher than the daily tourist rate at that time, so guess it might be a swings vs roundabout case ii)

Do you have the basic BA card?

I made a purchase the other day on my BAPP, for a couple thousand $, and looking at my statement, to buy the same number of miles earnt would cost me about 33% more than the fee.

That is based on a low spend and I expect the % would drop a little as you spend more.