Released: June 05, 2007

Don’t let foreign exchange rates spoil your trip

Source: Sandra Block, USA Today

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If you plan to travel outside the USA this summer, brace yourself for $8 hamburgers, $7 cups of coffee (refills not included) and $100 taxi rides from the airport. Want a hotel room for less than $200 a night? Be prepared to share a bathroom at the end of the hall with a burly guy who takes long showers.

There’s not much you can do about the anemic value of the dollar right now compared with other currencies. But you can take steps to reduce currency-conversion fees. These fees aren’t as obnoxious as a $10 croissant, but they can drive up the cost of your vacation.

Visa and MasterCard charge a standard 1% fee for foreign purchases. In recent years, many banks have tacked on currency-conversion fees of up to 2%.

These fees are calculated as a percentage of your overall credit card purchase, usually in U.S. dollars. If, for example, you spent 100 British pounds, and it converted to $198 in U.S. dollars, a 3% currency-conversion fee would add about $6.

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