This seems to be a bit of a strange topic for an outdoor focused blog, but the reason it is here is that I frequently purchase many of my outdoor equipment online, and the majority of it comes from the US, because it is either lower cost, or more importantly some specialized gear simply cannot be purchased in Canada. It also is great for traveling. It’s no secret that the value of the Canadian dollar to the US dollar has been tanking hard recently, and has been for the past several years. Nowadays I have to do the math to see if I really want to purchase something from the US. When it was once on par for quite a while with each other, I didn’t really have to think.
In
all honesty, I hate Rogers as a company, part of the oligopoly that holds
Canadians hostage with their sky high telecommunications costs and lack of
customer service to boot. Likewise, I
hate the banks, almost equally an oligopoly, they squeeze every penny out of
their customers with service fees and hidden fees to rake in huge profits.
Why
am I mentioning Rogers Credit Card – Rogers and a bank, you’d think that would
be the worst of all worlds? Paradoxically, Rogers Credit card offers something
few others in Canada do. That thing is
no foreign exchange fees. If you
purchase only occasionally in foreign currency, you might not notice how
screwed you are being with foreign exchange.
Firstly Visa sets a daily rate, based on the cost of the currency pair
the day before. You can find this out
here: https://usa.visa.com/support/consumer/travel-support/exchange-rate-calculator.html/ .
If you look at the real exchange from the day before, you will notice
that Visa makes a little money on top of the real exchange. Then comes the bank that issued your credit
card. Almost all banks charge a further
2.5% on top of the Visa rate, thank you very much for the easy profit! But this is usually all hidden in one general
exchange rate that you see on your card.
So, tyipically, you can pay 5% more just for Visa and then you bank to
take turns raping you for exchange fees then conveniently hiding it all in one
number. Well, with the Rogers card, at
least you save the 2.5% that your bank would normally charge you.
Now,
if you go through Paypal, it’s even a different story. Paypal itself has even
more enigmatic exchange fees and they hide it even more. Suffice it to say, Paypal will screw you over
even more if you allow them to change you in your native currency. By default they will exchange the currency
and just charge you in your native currency.
And the fees they collect are even higher. If you must go through Paypal, I believe
there is an option for Paypal to charge your credit card in the original
currency, instead of converting it to your native currency. Do this.
So,
the no exchange fees is a good reason to get this card if you purchase many
items cross border, or travel a lot. After
doing some research, I found there were only a couple other cards.. namely
Amazon.ca card run by Chase Bank, and that’s almost it. I see many complaints about Chase bank,
namely their customer service is horrible and their oldschool paper type of statements,
along with the lack of online account management. Sadly there are not much other options for
Canadians for no foreign exchange fee cards.
As
a bonus with the Rogers Card, you sort of get 1.75% back on your
purchases. By sort of, I mean it can only
go towards Rogers or Fido services/products.
I happen to have a Fido phone, so this works out for me.
Bottom
line, to deal with foreign currency exchange and minimize your fees:
- Know what your bank is charging and do the math to estimate how much money you loose in foreign exchange fees
- Get a zero foreign exchange fee credit card if possible. Rogers Bank card is a good option for this in Canada at this time.
- Always ask for your card to be charged in the native currency of the country you are buying from, so the credit card does the exchange. This includes PayPal.
- Know what your bank is charging and do the math to estimate how much money you loose in foreign exchange fees
- Get a zero foreign exchange fee credit card if possible. Rogers Bank card is a good option for this in Canada at this time.
- Always ask for your card to be charged in the native currency of the country you are buying from, so the credit card does the exchange. This includes PayPal.
This
applies whether you are travelling in a foreign country, or ordering things
online.
Some
Links:
