Curious FOREGIN Purchases

[BearsAndTurtlesRtheBest]

SO if you own a mastercard or a visa and you are in mexico and they accept MC and VISA can you use it? since its considered PESOS (mexican money),

[p-]

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@BearsAndTurtlesRtheBest wrote:

SO if you own a mastercard or a visa and you are in mexico and they accept MC and VISA can you use it? since its considered PESOS (mexican money),

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You need to look at your credit card agreement closely, or call customer service.  Often banks will charge FT (Foreign Transaction) fees.

[SwiftTone]

Correct, if your CCC allows transactions in foreign countries then you're all set. Keep in mind there are often fees associiated with transactions in foreign countries(FTF).

Also, the Pesos and USD conversion rate is set by the card network(VISA, MC) which can be found found daily. I usually look up the rate on the Wall Street Journal.

[bs6054]

So this is the second time I have seen this mentioned today!  Are there really MC/VISA which are restricted to use in the US?   I thought almost by requirement that had to be accepted internationally.

[Revelate]

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@bs6054 wrote:

So this is the second time I have seen this mentioned today!  Are there really MC/VISA which are restricted to use in the US?   I thought almost by requirement that had to be accepted internationally.

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I don't know of any offhand, but I suppose it's possible given the verification process / infrastructure.

I'd have to wonder though why any lender would want this to be the case?  Since they do get some fraction of the transaction fee, and every creditor wants their cards to be used as much as possible (ok within reason), why artificially limit it at all?

I certainly can't imagine there ever being an issue in Mexico in that regard, there'd be screams from both sides of the border if that were the case.

[bs6054]

Yes,  The other of life's necessities, cell phones, either need you to opt-in and/or issue warning notices to use internationally, depending on the carrier.  But the difference there is instead of a 3% FTF, roaming fees can be more like 500% for voice or 10,000 or more % for data, so when people returned from Mexico with multi-thousand dollar cell phone bills, requirements were put in place.   Not going to happen for credit cards.

[Walt_K]

Another thing to avoid when you are using your card overseas.  Don't have them process the charge in US dollars, have them process it in the local currency.  When they process it in US dollars, it's a sneaky way for them to get more fees.  It's called dynamic currency conversion.

[trumpet-205]

There are cards out there that is domestic only. Mostly this is for debt or prepaid Visa/MC card.

[creditnocash]

not a credit card, but i used my boa debit card when i was in mexico. they charged me a 12cent fee to convert 3.86 at starbucks. lemme tell you. didnt taste the same

[sengpatt]

The nice thing about BofA debit cards though is that BofA is a member of the Global ATM Alliance, so you can use the withdraw money from partner banks' ATMs in other countries and only get charged the 1% conversion fee.