topic Re: Best cards for oversea vacation in Credit Cards

Best cards for oversea vacation

Anonymous — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 17:22:24 GMT

Myself and my hubby are going to be taking a trip overseas to Paris and surrounding areas in the summer. I have been looking into cards witha chip and pin that have no foreign transaction fees and I need some suggestions. Cards that have overseas perks as bonus or airline bonuses would be great too but only if they are air France or air Canada. Anyone have any insight or reccomendations?

Re: Best cards for oversea vacation

Open123 — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 17:30:57 GMT

Chase Hyatt - 2 free nights each at any Hyatt with $100 statement credit sign up bonus, if you app through your Hyatt rewards site. No forex fee with chip.

Re: Best cards for oversea vacation

zeusta20 — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 18:08:44 GMT

With the Chase Sapphire Preferred, you get 2x the points on AIRTRAVEL when you book through Ultimate Rewards through Chase. No foreign Transaction fees, HOWEVER, there is an annual fee, But its worth it. Also, if you spend 3k within the 3 months of opening, you get a bonus of 40k points which is equivalent to 500.00 when you book flights through chase.

Re: Best cards for oversea vacation

zeusta20 — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 18:11:11 GMT

I'm sorry...they are not air france or air canada though....

Re: Best cards for oversea vacation

gpfirestone — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 18:39:32 GMT

air canada is amex platinum. i would do that with a signup bonus. use the $200 travel credit and lounges while you travel too. save your pts and when aeroplan does a bonus transfer them.

Re: Best cards for oversea vacation

Open123 — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 18:41:46 GMT

@gpfirestone wrote:
air canada is amex platinum. i would do that with a signup bonus. use the $200 travel credit and lounges while you travel too. save your pts and when aeroplan does a bonus transfer them.

Right, with the MB Platinum, there's a 50K bonus, no forex, emv chip, and $200 airline credit per calendar year, etc...

Combine that with Chase Hyatt's free rooms, and you've got quite a vacation!

Re: Best cards for oversea vacation

zeusta20 — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 18:57:52 GMT

@Open123 wrote:
@gpfirestone wrote:
air canada is amex platinum. i would do that with a signup bonus. use the $200 travel credit and lounges while you travel too. save your pts and when aeroplan does a bonus transfer them.
Right, with the MB Platinum, there's a 50K bonus, no forex, emv chip, and $200 airline credit per calendar year, etc...

Combine that with Chase Hyatt's free rooms, and you've got quite a vacation!

hmmm, never thought of that. I like the way you think! lol

Re: Best cards for oversea vacation

Cdnewmanpac — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 19:50:09 GMT

1. Why chip and pin? Chip and signature should be fine for Paris.

2. For reasons I still cannot fathom, CSP is still chipless. That being said, you would get 40k UR points at signup and 2pts/dollar on tickets and all travel/restaurant spend. No forex fees. You could then convert to Korean Air points, which can be used on SkyTeam flights, including AirFrance. I agree the Amex Plat would be a straighter shot, but some may struggle with the AF, even with lounge, redemption for airline expenses, global entry, etc.

3. Maybe Citi Hilton Reserve? Depends on hotel plans, but does earn points for hilton stays and 5pts/dollar on travel (if you value hhonors at 0.5cpp, thats still 2.5pts/dollar equiv).

Re: Best cards for oversea vacation

CreditScholar — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 03:17:03 GMT

@Cdnewmanpac wrote:
1. Why chip and pin? Chip and signature should be fine for Paris.
2. For reasons I still cannot fathom, CSP is still chipless. That being said, you would get 40k UR points at signup and 2pts/dollar on tickets and all travel/restaurant spend. No forex fees. You could then convert to Korean Air points, which can be used on SkyTeam flights, including AirFrance. I agree the Amex Plat would be a straighter shot, but some may struggle with the AF, even with lounge, redemption for airline expenses, global entry, etc.
3. Maybe Citi Hilton Reserve? Depends on hotel plans, but does earn points for hilton stays and 5pts/dollar on travel (if you value hhonors at 0.5cpp, thats still 2.5pts/dollar equiv).

I'd suspect that the CSP isn't "high-end enough" to justify the costs of adding a chip. In saying that, I mean that the majority of people who have the card don't absolutely need it. By design it's a card that was intended for high earning/spending travellers, but in practice it's become a more everyday card for many people. I doubt the vast majority of CSP cardholders travel to places that require a chip even once a year.

Besides the cards already mentioned, the US Bank Club Carlson card is one to consider. While I'm normally not a fan of their properties, they do have some nice ones in Paris. It offers a decent signup bonus, gold status, and the last night free on point redemptions.

Re: Best cards for oversea vacation

TiggerDat — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 03:26:31 GMT

Maybe one of the reasons for not having a card with a chip is that it is easy to steal the information from it. I have heard stories about how there are some people who hang around airports with chip readers and simply steal the card information and then either use or sell it. I have a friend that it happened to, so be careful maybe keep them in a steel wallet.

Re: Best cards for oversea vacation

Henchman21 — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 03:49:57 GMT

You don't need the chip. I never had any problems using a card in Europe or pulling from a foreign ATM.

Re: Best cards for oversea vacation

Anonymous — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 04:30:13 GMT

I dont know if i can bring myself to pay an annual fee that high for an Amex. Do they charge it up front or can I cancel in a year before it hits? Also I read that Amex much like here isn't as widely accepted overseas as visa and mc, anyone know about that? I'd hate for my free forex card to not be accepted and have to resort to my backup.

Re: Best cards for oversea vacation

scenery_guy — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 05:05:41 GMT

The Platinum AF is billed about the second statement. If you cancel you can get part of it back prorated I believe. IDK about AMEX being widely accepted everywhere, most AMEX carriers (me included) are accustomed to carrying a back up. You have to whine a bit then pull out a Visa or MC. I'm sure the French will understand that part

If you can muster the AF it's a great travel card. Good signup bonus should help with the ouch of the AF as well, and you can use the points to help pay for the flights.

Re: Best cards for oversea vacation

Anonymous — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 06:13:21 GMT

@bernhardtra wrote:
Maybe one of the reasons for not having a card with a chip is that it is easy to steal the information from it. I have heard stories about how there are some people who hang around airports with chip readers and simply steal the card information and then either use or sell it. I have a friend that it happened to, so be careful maybe keep them in a steel wallet.

Really? An EMV chip? I believe that really needs physical possesion or very close contact with the card. There have been reports of such things with near-field (paywave or whatever), and with chipped passports, but most of these are theoretical (as compared to cloning the card by swiping, which really does happen!). SO the big question is: how does your friend even know what happened? If there were fraudulent charges, it could have happened any number of ways.

Not to say EMV is nearly as secure as vendors would like, but generally much better than mag stripe

Re: Best cards for oversea vacation

cashnocredit — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 06:37:34 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@bernhardtra wrote:
Maybe one of the reasons for not having a card with a chip is that it is easy to steal the information from it. I have heard stories about how there are some people who hang around airports with chip readers and simply steal the card information and then either use or sell it. I have a friend that it happened to, so be careful maybe keep them in a steel wallet.
Really? An EMV chip? I believe that really needs physical possesion or very close contact with the card. There have been reports of such things with near-field (paywave or whatever), and with chipped passports, but most of these are theoretical (as compared to cloning the card by swiping, which really does happen!). SO the big question is: how does your friend even know what happened? If there were fraudulent charges, it could have happened any number of ways.

Not to say EMV is nearly as secure as vendors would like, but generally much better than mag stripe

Right.

EMV chips can't be cloned. Even if a transaction is recorded electronically that doesn't impair security since each transaction generates unique keys within the chip. The next use is different. It is being confused with the "chips" used in many cards that offer wave pay. This is common in the US and used for small amount transactions. Some of these chips can be read remotely. There is some clear and demonstrated risk with these but it's not been exploited so far. The biggest vulnerability is the mag stripe. These can be swiped by cheap mechanisms you can buy on ebay. Crooks can then clone the cards easily by rewriting the strip on an existing card (how many people actually check the swipe info to see if it matches the card number?). More sophisticates ops just make new cards. The tech is simple.

Not so EMV chip and pin. Card fraud has virtually disappeared in the EU outside of card not present purchases where the chip isn't used.

Re: Best cards for oversea vacation

jsucool76 — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 11:34:09 GMT

Bernhardtra that sounds more like the nfc chip anyways. You can buy the nrc readers for 10 bucks on ebay and then go rub it by peoples butts.

Re: Best cards for oversea vacation

mikka1 — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 14:17:57 GMT

CSP is almost useless in France (have just come back from Nice a couple of weeks ago) - yes, you'll have no problems in huge restaurants and hotel chains, but forget about paying tolls / many parking garages and doing lots of other everyday things with CSP...

Saying frankly - I like how CSP looks, but I don't want to pay almost $100 just for the look, so most likely I'll not keep it for the second year.

I am still convinced that BofA Travel Rewards is one of the best travel cards out there. I wish I had a larger limit with BofA, then I would've probably never applied for CSP :-)...