Are you planning a vacation in Europe or the rest of the world? Are you planning to work abroad for a few weeks or months? It is therefore better to have a bank card that will allow you not to pay withdrawal or payment fees. For travel credit card for points you need to know the followings.
Going on vacation outside our borders requires you to prepare your trip well in advance. Payments and withdrawals abroad can indeed add to the budget if we are not careful. You can contact your bank to find out the prices charged for transactions abroad, or look carefully at the price brochure of your establishment.
If you find that your bank charges too high prices for this type of operation, you can obviously leave it for another or opt for a less radical option by subscribing in addition to another, more interesting offer for your trip. Especially if it is one of the unconditional offers of an online banking since you will not have any commitment to domiciliation your income or to deposit savings there, and a large number of these bank accounts in online are free. In addition, beyond not paying fees abroad with these, you will sometimes be entitled to a “welcome bonus”.
Which Offer To Choose To Go Abroad?
A bank account to go abroad requires taking into account several data: the cost of the card, the fees applied to the operations, the type of card chosen and the insurance that may be offered.
Cost: How to Get a Free Bank Card?
Some establishments offer the card free of charge without conditions. Card is free as long as you make one payment or withdrawal per month, otherwise a monthly fee of $ 3 is charged. For the ING Integral offer, a transfer of $ 1,200 per month must be made to the current account otherwise a charge of $ 10 is applied. For its part, conditions the gratuity on the justification of $ 1,600 of income per month and the fact of making three monthly payments, otherwise the bank charges $ 9.
Finally, bank charge a membership fee, ranging from $ 2 to $ 9.90 per month. Only American Express exceeds 10 dollars per month with its Gold card. However, the American bank offers the first year of membership (i.e. savings of 180 dollars), and justifies this high rate, in particular by its loyalty program which allows you to accumulate points for each euro spent. These points are then used to obtain gifts or even to pay for purchases.
Fees: What Commissions On Withdrawals and Payments Abroad?
If you are going on holiday in the euro zone, the charges applied are the same as those charged by your bank. But if you go abroad, outside the SEPA zone, banks generally charge commissions: either on withdrawals, or on payments, or on both types of operations.
At online banks, the free transactions abroad are offset by the cost of the card, even if it is often low. This configuration can also be found in a traditional bank, dedicated to young people aged 18 to 30, exempts its holders from fees on transactions around the world, but access to the bundled offer of services cost 2 dollars per month.
Apart from the specific offers, withdrawing from an automatic teller machine (ATM) abroad often generates costs in a traditional bank (or even in some online banks). Indeed, banks often charge a withdrawal commission. Generally made up of a variable part (as a percentage of the amount withdrawn) and a fixed part (x dollars). Minimum or maximum billing may also be provided, as is the case with American Express. Traditional banks generally charge a fee of $ 3 and 2.50% of the amount withdrawn, while online banks apply an average of 1.90% of the amount withdrawn. For example, for a withdrawal of 300 pounds in the UK, it will actually cost you $ 10.50 at a traditional establishment compared to only $ 5.57 at an online bank.
