Most of the credit card companies charge an international surcharge. I thought this was for currency conversion, but a bill in US dollars from Bonaire used to get hit with this charge. Someone told me last year that when the Bonaire currency became officially the US dollar that the surcharge would end. Does anyone know if this is true? I plan to call my card company, but wanted any input in advance of the call.

I suspect not. I believe that it's the international banking replationships (local bank in foreign country & correspondent bank in US) that generate the fees, not the pure c/c transaction. I think we will still continue to see transaction fees even though purchases on BON will be in USDs.

I could be wrong, and someone else may have more direct info, but that's been my experience from 35+ years international travel.

We've used a Chase Visa card here for years. The merchant like Wil's or Warehouse Foods converted the guilders to dollars, charged the card, and no transaction fee. So I don't think this changed on 1/1. May depend on the bank issuing the card. FWIW, Bank of America charges a 3% fee for foreign transactions in Europe (don't know about Bonaire), Capital One does not.

Most U.S. banks now charge the 'foreign transaction fee'. We even got hit with one from Puerto Rico (go figure)! We have one card at only 1%, the others are 3%. This is even on Bonaire where they convert the charge to dollars.

Capital One is the one many people use due to no foreign transaction fee (yet!).

HTH - Bea

I know that Citi, BofA, and Citizens all charge a foreign exchange fee for US$ charges on Bonaire. And in most cases will also tack on 3% for US Dollar ATM withdrawals on Bonaire. What a scam.

Capital One, however does not charge any surcharges - we've been using them exclusively when we're on Bonaire or traveling elsewhere outside the U.S. for just that reason. They also have a Direct Banking savings account that you can get an ATM card for, and no fees on that either. And they promote that fact - I know when I last called them to tell them we'd be using our card in Asia in July, they closed by reminding me that they charge no transactions surcharges.

Also, there's no fee from American Express (at least not that I've experienced) for charging in U.S. Dollars on Bonaire (or Ecuador for that matter), but they do charge a fee if the currency being charged in is not US Dollars.

Hope that helps,

Jake

Jake,
I have a Capital One Credit card with no fee for ATMs. Do the Bonaire banks charge a fee for withdrawl on these?
Thanks

Correction - I have a Savings Account (and a credit card) with Capital One
Thanks again

Hope, I found in the first week of January that the ATM machines from RBTT did not charge an additional fee (but the displays said they would charge $3 - so it might have been an error that I wasn't charged). My wife later used the MCB ATM at Warehouse and was charged the $3 (after being informed that would be what they charge).

I would assume that the CapOne Savings Account ATM card carries no International exchange fees (these are typically charged by the bank the card is held with), since at least some of CapOne's other products (Direct Banking and credit cards) don't charge such a fee, but you should check with CapOne to be sure.

Jake

I just found an interesting article from December:

http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/17/more-cards-waive-foreign-exchange-fees/

Citi has two new cards - the ThankYou Premiere and ThankYou Prestige - which don't charge foreign transaction fees, but they have sizable annual fees (but also some travel benefits).

However, the article still concludes that Capital One is the best over all option :-)

By the way, the RBTT ATM machines still (as of a few days ago) are not charging a fee to use a U.S.-based Cirrus ATM card, while MCB's ATM machines are charging $3.

Jake

P.S. Just found this overall summary:

http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/foreign-exchange-fees-going-up-1267.php

(Message edited by jake on February 26, 2011)