I know this is a noob question. Is the FTF just means the transactions in foreign currency or included foreign merchants(which can put the transactions amount in $$, but located abroad)?
@Anonymous wrote:
@Gatortrout wrote:
FTF = Foreign Transaction Fee. Fees the CC company tack on to your purchases made in foreign countries.If it is processed by a foreign processor. And, as the OP suggests, can be in local or US currency. What also sometimes catches people out is buying on the web, so airline X, even the US site, might end up processing payments in its home country, and these can incur FTF as well.
+1
or in the case of www.aa.com international tickets get processed in the UK for some odd reasons for me and Citi AA is adding the FTF... still trying to figure out why domestic tickets get processed in the US and international in the UK.... AA and Citi both are clueless to why this is happening and blame the fees on each other....LOL... I can use the Citi AA card paying for everything but AA tickets 
@Anonymous wrote:
@Gatortrout wrote:
FTF = Foreign Transaction Fee. Fees the CC company tack on to your purchases made in foreign countries.If it is processed by a foreign processor. And, as the OP suggests, can be in local or US currency. What also sometimes catches people out is buying on the web, so airline X, even the US site, might end up processing payments in its home country, and these can incur FTF as well.
So if I bought a hotel room charged in US dollars in Japan, I also need to pay FTF? That is sad
@DavidZeng wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
@Gatortrout wrote:
FTF = Foreign Transaction Fee. Fees the CC company tack on to your purchases made in foreign countries.If it is processed by a foreign processor. And, as the OP suggests, can be in local or US currency. What also sometimes catches people out is buying on the web, so airline X, even the US site, might end up processing payments in its home country, and these can incur FTF as well.
So if I bought a hotel room charged in US dollars in Japan, I also need to pay FTF? That is sad
Yes, this is a transaction in a foreign country. This catches a lot of people out: the merchant offers, "for convenience" to charge you in dollars. The customer agrees, either for convenience (they don't have to calculate!) or because they think this will avoid extra fees. Instead, what happens is the merchant converts at a worse rate than the CC would give you (making a profit) and then you still get hit with a FTF. Advice is always keep the charges in local currency. Dynamic Currency Conversion is not your friend.
@Anonymous wrote:
@DavidZeng wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
@Gatortrout wrote:
FTF = Foreign Transaction Fee. Fees the CC company tack on to your purchases made in foreign countries.If it is processed by a foreign processor. And, as the OP suggests, can be in local or US currency. What also sometimes catches people out is buying on the web, so airline X, even the US site, might end up processing payments in its home country, and these can incur FTF as well.
So if I bought a hotel room charged in US dollars in Japan, I also need to pay FTF? That is sad
Yes, this is a transaction in a foreign country. This catches a lot of people out: the merchant offers, "for convenience" to charge you in dollars. The customer agrees, either for convenience (they don't have to calculate!) or because they think this will avoid extra fees. Instead, what happens is the merchant converts at a worse rate than the CC would give you (making a profit) and then you still get hit with a FTF. Advice is always keep the charges in local currency. Dynamic Currency Conversion is not your friend.
YES YES! The merchant usally use 1 USD to ONLY 90 or worse JPY, the normal rate is 1 USD to 105 JPY! OH MY GOD. And on top of that, still FTF?? 
Next time, I will just ask them to put JPY.
You may get charged an FTF even if you make a purchase in the US in USD.
The most rediculous example of this occured to me near Buffalo, NY by Niagra Falls. I parked on a CITY street and opted to use the credit card machine to pay the parking fee since I wasn't sure how long I would be there and you could pay at the end and only be charged for the time spent. Total charge was ~$2. Fast forward a few weeks and I see a $0.04 "Miscellaneous Charge" on my statement. Not sure what this was, I called my bank. Apparently the credit card machine processed the transaction in Canada so I was charged an FTF. Part of me wanted to dispute this on principle, but I just couldn't find it in my mind to argue over four cents.
But the fact that I was charged an FTF fee for making a purchase in the US for parking on a municipal street and paying in US dollars just pissed me off royally.
Once in a while you might get charged FTF for PayPal transactions as well since PayPal will send a foreign purchase flag to the credit card company if the seller is out of the US, even if you pay in USD. As far as I can see, Google does not do this.
