A Common Travel Rip-Off to Avoid
1 min readI want to make sure you’re all aware of a money-saving tip that came into play a lot during my recent trip to Spain and Portugal—in nearly every restaurant and shop. When you use a credit card abroad, and you’re given a choice of paying in U.S. dollars or the local currency, choose the local ...
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I want to make sure you’re all aware of a money-saving tip that came into play a lot during my recent trip to Spain and Portugal—in nearly every restaurant and shop.
When you use a credit card abroad, and you’re given a choice of paying in U.S. dollars or the local currency, choose the local currency. Otherwise you’ll end up paying an unnecessary currency-exchange fee that’s typically between 3% and 12%.
This is true not only in restaurants and shops, but also now with Uber: In the Uber app, opt out of paying in your home currency and instead select the local-currency option, since otherwise you’ll be charged a 1.5% currency conversion fee.
Of course, for all credit-card purchases abroad, you should be using a credit card that does not charge foreign-transaction fees.
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