Amazon.ca Rewards Visa Card No Foreign Transaction Fees

[markopolo]

This will be of interest to Canadians who travel to the U.S. and / or purchase items from the U.S.

Amazon.ca Rewards Visa Card - No Foreign Transaction Fees

http://www.amazon.ca/gp/cobrandcard/marketing.html

No Foreign Transaction Fees - We convert transactions made in foreign currency at the exchange rate set by Visa International. The card is issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A.

U.S. dollar purchases will be converted at the exchange rate but you won't have to pay a fee for that. Foreign Transaction Fees are typically 2.5% - that equates to $50 in transaction fees per $2,000 spent and converted.

List of Canadian credit cards and fees: http://www.fcac-acfc.gc.ca/eng/resource ... ab-eng.asp

The Amazon card does not have an annual fee and you earn 2 points for each $1 of eligible net purchases made at Amazon.ca and 1 point for each $1 of all other eligible net purchases. So not only do you save the foreign transaction fees you also can get around 1% credited back to the card. ($20 back for $2,000 spent on non Amazon.ca purchases)

I don't have one but it is worth looking into if you travel or purchase items from the U.S. frequently.

[Mike]

Where can I get one? Is it through Amazon.ca? Or do I have to go to the US and try to open an account with JP Morgan Chase?

[markopolo]

I fixed the link above.

http://www.amazon.ca/gp/cobrandcard/marketing.html

Yes, you have to apply online at Amazon.ca

[Mike]

Most excellent. I shall be investigating.

This was the response to my "how to" query,

"Hello from Amazon.ca,

The JP Morgan Chase credit card is issued by Chase. You'll need to contact Chase if you have any questions.

I'm also including contact information for Chase below if you'd like to contact them for further assistance:

English: 1-866-557-7811
French: 1-888-514-2015

I hope this helps. We look forward to seeing you again soon."

While investigating this, I also found that some of the Sears Mastercards also have 0% foreign currency conversion fees, with some limitations in the cardholder agreement. There's a Sears near me, so I'll probably go see what they actually have to offer, sometime soon.

[Mike]

Waiting for a Sears MC.

[markopolo]

Visa Exchange Rates:
http://corporate.visa.com/pd/consume...r_ex_rates.jsp

[Mike]

Got the Sears MC today. Will update the thread when we get our first bill.
I am hopeful that it will be a nice addition to our arsenal of money saving travel weapons.

[Mike]

So far, so good. I now await my first bill.

[Mike]

First bill arrived. No unexpected fees or added anything that I can see.
And no apparent currency conversion fee added when converting US$ purchases into C$.
When converted, with our C$ valued slightly higher than the US$, we actually owed less per transaction, as I expected, and the converted amounts seem to be based on the average currency exchange rate in effect at the time of conversion, or so it appears.

[markopolo]

Same experience here Mike. All US$ purchase are at slightly better than par and no fees tacked on.

[Mike]

An interesting update/wrinkle added to this thread.
The US recently passed a bill prohibiting credit card companies from blocking retailers from charging so called "swipe fees" for credit card usage at checkout. Now any retailers who start charging swipe fees must (I believe) clearly inform the customer, by signage or otherwise, that a swipe fee will be added to their purchase if they use a credit card, and how much the swipe fee will add to the total transaction (not sure if they can charge a flat fee, or a percentage, or both). I haven't seen any advertised "swipe fees are charged here" signage anywhere in the USA yet, but the law only came into effect in the last week.
Have any of our US based members had any of your regular retailers start charging you to use your credit card instead of cash or debit? Where has it happened, and how much were you charged (%?) on top of the transaction? I thought I read that a max of 3% could be added, per transaction.
I used my credit card at Walmart and Murphy Gas on Saturday, and saw nothing unusual, but the swipe fees weren't officially allowed until January 27, 2013 (Sunday).
Might head over today to see what's up. Apparently it will be implemented or ignored at the discretion of the individual retailer. I would think that any business that has allowed credit card usage since their inception, has already included offsetting increases in their product price, to cover their cost of allowing customer credit card usage.

[markopolo]

I've been reading a few articles on that recently.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-2 ... hases.html

Surcharging became an option for merchants that use those networks on Jan. 27 as part of a proposed lawsuit settlement that Visa, MasterCard and some of the biggest U.S. banks reached with retailers in July. The change will not supersede laws in 10 states, including California, Florida, New York and Texas, that limit the fees. American Express Co. (AXP) wasn’t part of the deal.

Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, has no plans to start surcharging, Randy Hargrove, a spokesman, said yesterday in an e-mail.

Target, the second-largest U.S. discounter, and Macy’s, the second-largest U.S. department-store chain, won’t institute surcharges either, Jenna Reck and Beth Charlton, spokeswomen respectively for the two companies, said yesterday.

Sears Holdings Corp. (SHLD), the largest U.S. department-store chain, has no plans to issue the fees, spokesman Chris Brathwaite said in an e-mail. J.C. Penney Co. didn’t respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

But these type of things can take hold.

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/attenti ... -1C8086499

But Edgar Dworsky, founder of ConsumerWorld.org, worries that over time surcharges will gain traction.

”It’s predictable what’s going to happen,” he said. “We’re at the top of the hill and we’re going to start going down that slippery slope.”

Dworsky points to Australia, where surcharging credit card use began in 2003. At first, few merchants charged the fee. His research shows that approximately one-third of the sellers there – including some hotels, supermarkets, department stores and utilities – now charge extra to use a credit card.

We charge everything for convenience, points, air miles etc. and don't carry a balance but I would switch to cash if every time I bought groceries for example if they tacked on 3% or 4% on the bill to use a credit card. That would really add up quickly over a year - a few hundred extra annually on the grocery bill alone.

[Mike]

Agreed. I wonder if the largest retailers have already priced their cc costs into their product prices? They may not wish to antagonize their loyal customer base by adding what would amount to a gouge to do business with them.
It would also open the door to competition among retailers over cc swipe fee rates, and that might be a project that few want to spend the resources on watching and maintaining over time.

We'll see, I guess.

[markopolo]

Sorry - this is off the topic "No Foreign Transaction Fees" but it is related to what we recently discussed.

I drove by a gas station yesterday and saw fuel prices on the board advertised at a cash/debit price and at a credit card price.

Both diesel and gas had the two tiered pricing. Cash/Debit price was cheaper than the Credit Card price.
I haven't seen that before.

[Rok]

A recent court class action litigation was settled and some rules the Visa and Mastercard people were imposing were changed as part of the settlement. It used to be that if you were a merchant, Visa and M/C forbade you to charge more to your customers for using a credit card. You could give a "cash discount", but you couldn't charge a Credit Card surcharge. There were a bunch of other related issues as to how you could display the "cash discount" in the merchant agreement.

In our area, some merchants would have signs out like, "all transactions have a 65 cent "processing fee" added on. Customers who pay with cash will be refunded that processing fee." That type of hokey language won't be necessary anymore. Now they can just come out and say, "If you use your credit card to buy your taco, we charge an extra 65 cents."

You will probably see a bunch of new stuff like that now.

I got something in the mail about this because I've been a merchant for a couple of decades and I am part of the settlement. (Although due to a technicality, I won't get anything from it--other than the literature telling me some things have been changed).

.........Rocky

[Mike]

It's fairly common at truck stops for diesel, to see a two tiered pricing system. Cash price is cheaper.
Some gas stations across the river in Michigan also have a discounted cash price, and some discount their posted price by as much as 10 cents a gallon if you use a reloadable gift or loyalty card to pay.
Walmart (and/or Meijers?), do it this way.
I still think they've priced the credit card convenience charge into their base pricing system. As long as they don't specify why their prices are slightly higher, no one is likely to care.