Discover Paypal 5% Foreign Transaction Fee?

[MoneyBurns]

Hi,

If I were to spend money using my Discover Credit to pay an international seller in Japan, would there be any FTFs? I'd like to use Paypal to get the 5% but if there are FTFs then I'll just go with my Paypal Mastercard.

ETA: I am planning on using Paypal as the payment method, linking it with my Discover Credit card.

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Discover doesn’t charge any FTF on their cards.

[SBR249]

Discover may not charge any FTFs but you should double check what currency you will be charged in. I have seen Paypal default to DCC and for some reason, there are cards where you can ask to be charged in the local currency and there are cards where that's not even an option (AmEx iirc). Just make sure you are sure what conversion rate you'll be using if there is currency conversion involved. 

[K-in-Boston]

I’ll second that. As long as the transaction is in USD there would never be any fees no matter what card you use. I’ve purchased hundreds of items from Europe and Asia over the years with PayPal.

[UncleB]

The last payment I made via Paypal for an international purchase IIRC during checkout I had the option to select where the conversion took place, but there's a separate setting (really hard to find) if your payment will be recurring (note the 'classic' interface):

The only cards I have with a link to this screen are MC and Visa; it's missing for Discover and Amex.  I know American Express doesn't allow DCC anyway, but as far as I know Discover does so it's not clear (to me) how that would work if the billing was recurring.

@MoneyBurns as long as your payment is one-time you should be fine in any case.

Edited to add:  Beware of using the PP MasterCard for overseas Paypal transactions.  There are threads where people reported not being able to opt-out of the conversion being done by PP when the PP MasterCard is used even though the PP MasterCard has no fee (I'll try to find the links).

[zerofire]

---

@UncleB wrote:

The last payment I made via Paypal for an international purchase IIRC during checkout I had the option to select where the converstion took place, but there's a separate setting (really hard to find) if your payment will be recurring (note the 'classic' interface):

The only cards I have with a link to this screen are MC and Visa; it's missing for Discover and Amex.  I know American Express doesn't allow DCC anyway, but as far as I know Discover does so it's not clear (to me) how that would work if the billing was recurring.

@MoneyBurns as long as your payment is one-time you should be fine in any case.

Edited to add:  Beware of using the PP MasterCard for overseas Paypal transactions.  There are threads where people reported not being able to opt-out of the conversion being done by PP when the PP MasterCard is used even though the PP MasterCard has no fee (I'll try to find the links).

---

This is because PayPal and Synchrony Bank are in cahoots. When Synchrony Bank offers no FTF on the PayPal 2% Cashback they still get hit with a 1% FTF from MasterCard and have to eat it. To make the relationship better PayPal  will remove the option to chose so there is no 1% FTF from Mastercard and they get to make a slight profit in the conversion with fees at the same time. Sneaky but effective.

[MoneyBurns]

The currency as listed on their is going to be charged in Japanese Yen.

So if it is going to be in yen is there a conversion fee if I use Discover linked with paypal? It feels a bit confusing to me.

As for Paypal credit card, I can just use the credit card directly if it comes down to a foregin transaction fee.

Thanks!

[delaney1]

There shouldn’t be a FTF. I haven’t used my Discover card for foreign purchases yet, but my Cap One which also doesn’t charge FTF, has been used many times through PayPal to buy items overseas in euros. I pay in Euros through PayPal and then Cap One converts the charge to dollars with no FTF. So in your case, pay in yen and Discover will convert it to dollars on their end.

If PayPal is showing the charge in US dollars that means they have converted it for you and PayPal will charge you a small percentage for that conversion. Always pay in the foreign currency.

[gdale6]

FTF's are just another way to relieve you of your hard earned cash. They are not necessary at all. Luckily not all cards hammer you with this.