Originally Posted by thunder99

This has been brought up a couple of times and has never really been answered properly. I'm pretty sure Visa would tell epassporte what rate they charge i.e. interbank rate plus 2% or whatever it is. The actual figure value will vary of course, but the the way the rate is calculated will remain the same.

Visa and Mastercard make a fucking fortune from these conversion rates and everyone who travels should check what the rate is with their bank.

For example my first Visa card charged 2.75% commission on foreign currency and my Visa bill has about EUR1,000 of foreign currency transactions every month. Switching to a card that charged 1.5% (premium card with lots of perks, but costs EUR150 a year) pays for itself in what I save so I get a shitload of perks for free.

Moral of the story... read the small print and extra charges on all your bank/credit cards and accounts, so you know exactly what you're paying.