Less useful if you live in the Eurozone. I travel abroad a lot, and it's still just Euro....
Arbitraging credit cards while traveling abroad
11–20 of 27 posts
Re: Arbitraging credit cards while traveling abroad
#12It's sad that I have to say this in 2015, but the cheapest way to deal with money oversees is to... use cash as much as possible. It's not as convenient (although, everybody takes cash, credit cards - depends on where you go...), but taking a wad of cash for trips <= 1 week or making weekly withdrawals for travels longer than that is usually by far the cheapest option.
Re: Arbitraging credit cards while traveling abroad
#13It's sad that I have to say this in 2015, but the cheapest way to deal with money oversees is to... use cash as much as possible. It's not as convenient (although, everybody takes cash, credit cards - depends on where you go...), but taking a wad of cash for trips <= 1 week or making weekly withdrawals for travels longer than that is usually by far the cheapest option.
Agreed. That's what I've done for the past few years. If you get a good rate ahead of time, you're set. The main reason I do it, though, is I had numerous bad experiences with banks and credit cards blocking me over and over when I went to buy things overseas and I was sick of that - cash is king (if you can cope with the safety aspects).
Re: Arbitraging credit cards while traveling abroad
#14It's sad that I have to say this in 2015, but the cheapest way to deal with money oversees is to... use cash as much as possible. It's not as convenient (although, everybody takes cash, credit cards - depends on where you go...), but taking a wad of cash for trips <= 1 week or making weekly withdrawals for travels longer than that is usually by far the cheapest option.
I've found that cards get better exchange rates than converting cash. Sometimes several dozen percentage points better. However, if you pull the local currency out of an ATM, you get the card network's exchange rate, and at worst an ATM fee (if any).
Re: Arbitraging credit cards while traveling abroad
#15That's really useful. You might want to take a look at https://supercard.io/ - it's a virtual credit card which chooses the best daily rate for you. I'm on the beta trial and finding it pretty useful.
I use the https://revolut.com/ app, which is awesome as it doesn't change any fees ever.
Re: Arbitraging credit cards while traveling abroad
#16You also need to factor in any foreign currency fees your card issuer imposes. For example, in the UK, most banks impose a "non-sterling transaction fee" of 2.75-2.99% on transactions in a foreign currency.
There's a UK startup called Revolut - www.revolut.com - which allows you to hold GBP, USD and EUR on the same (pre-paid debit) card and convert money between them at mid-market rates, using an app.
It's pretty slick - I've literally stood at the counter, converting GBP to USD while the clerk rang up my purchase, then handed the card to the clerk and had the notification hit my phone seconds after he swiped.
Re: Arbitraging credit cards while traveling abroad
#17It's sad that I have to say this in 2015, but the cheapest way to deal with money oversees is to... use cash as much as possible. It's not as convenient (although, everybody takes cash, credit cards - depends on where you go...), but taking a wad of cash for trips <= 1 week or making weekly withdrawals for travels longer than that is usually by far the cheapest option.
Or this: https://revolut.com/
Re: Arbitraging credit cards while traveling abroad
#18So in the example, this method costs the user $7 compared to just always using the Visa card.
The quoted "savings" are compared to the worst possible case - which can only happen if... you use the suggested app.
Re: Arbitraging credit cards while traveling abroad
#19It's sad that I have to say this in 2015, but the cheapest way to deal with money oversees is to... use cash as much as possible. It's not as convenient (although, everybody takes cash, credit cards - depends on where you go...), but taking a wad of cash for trips <= 1 week or making weekly withdrawals for travels longer than that is usually by far the cheapest option.
I've found that cards get better exchange rates than converting cash. Sometimes several dozen percentage points better. However, if you pull the local currency out of an ATM, you get the card network's exchange rate, and at worst an ATM fee (if any).
Not in my experience (travelling to Budapest). Withdrawing EUR and converting to HUF in a local shop gave us a better rate than withdrawing HUF directly. Never buy stuff with EUR, though!
Re: Arbitraging credit cards while traveling abroad
#20Nice trick, though not that practical. 1% of oversee spending may be to little benefit for the cost: 1. Get more than one card with zero foreign transaction fees. Make sure you won't get charged yearly fee on those. 2. On every transaction, check the rate on smarthphone. Oh, you want to buy $3 coffee, let me check my rate to see if I can save $0.03. 3. More cards is more monitoring hassle. Harder to track, more hassl…
I think, but I'm not sure, that you're overstating the complication. Looking at your four steps:
1. Everyone should have two credit cards. You don't want a single point of failure (mistaken fraud freeze, for example.)
2. You only check every day, not every transaction.
3. Again, I argue you should have two (Visa + Mastercard)
4. Again. You're just trying to make things sound hard by repeating the same thing.
So. Have two cards. Make sure they autopay themselves. The only new work is checking the exchange rates once a day.