Foreign credit cards purchases at MEP rate

[jblaze5779]

Can anyone else confirm the duty free hack? If this is true I could spend some money in that place....

 

[gracielle]

I used my VISA card today at Carrefour. A bill for $2600.95 translated to $8.64US.

Did you use your US passport as ID?

 

[Redpossum]

Can anyone else confirm the duty free hack? If this is true I could spend some money in that place....

Duty Free hack?

I paid 10K ARS for a bottle of Jose Cuervo Gold the other day. It's always been expensive here, but hey, it's the real kabyle.

 

[Johnny]

Did you use your US passport as ID?

Yes I did.

 

[Maikito]

Can anyone else confirm the duty free hack? If this is true I could spend some money in that place....

What are you referring to? Which hack?

 

[Greg M]

As a test, I just made a small purchase at Easy of 2,945 pesos Argentinos with my Chase Visa. The corroborating charge pending on my Chase Visa account is $9.79 USD. Thus, a 300.8 / dollar exchange rate. Not as good as WU's current 330 / dollar, but the same as Xoom. Is the convenience of not lugging around cash and standing in line at WU worth 10% less via Visa? Maybe.

BTW ..... I used my Argie DNI as ID.

 

[TAJ]

As a test, I just made a small purchase at Easy of 2,945 pesos Argentinos with my Chase Visa. The corroborating charge pending on my Chase Visa account is $9.79 USD. Thus, a 300.8 / dollar exchange rate. Not as good as WU's current 330 / dollar, but the same as Xoom. Is the convenience of not lugging around cash and standing in line at WU worth 10% less via Visa? Maybe.

BTW ..... I used my Argie DNI as ID.

Assuming you aren't paying the 8%+ WU fee

 

[Che1990]

I really don't think this will be policed at all, ultimately they want the dollars.

I also don't see how they can track it. My UK bank account has nothing to do with Argentina and is registered to my UK address. Also, in the UK, there are no ID cards or anything like that, so there is no ID or passport number linked to my card. I've "accidentally mistyped" my passport number for online purchases here and it all went through fine.

Does anyone know any good Visa cards for low foreign transaction fee? So far, the Wise rates haven't updated and most UK banks charge 3% for foreign currency transactions.

 

[another]

I really don't think this will be policed at all, ultimately they want the dollars.

I also don't see how they can track it. My UK bank account has nothing to do with Argentina and is registered to my UK address. Also, in the UK, there are no ID cards or anything like that, so there is no ID or passport number linked to my card. I've "accidentally mistyped" my passport number for online purchases here and it all went through fine.

Does anyone know any good Visa cards for low foreign transaction fee? So far, the Wise rates haven't updated and most UK banks charge 3% for foreign currency transactions.

All your financials are surely linked to your NI#. People hugely underestimate the amount of information the big brother is collecting on each one of us. Snowden anybody?
CC transactions check security number + exp date + billing address to verify it used by the owner, but it only takes a few minutes for any average developer to slip your arg residence indicator into the code. Again, not saying it'll be done, just saying it's a piece of cake to implement if the govt here decides they want to.

 

[Redpossum]

Are Schwab still refunding foreign transaction fees?

I ask because my brokerage was bought out by Schwab, and they've said they're going to be rolling it all into one during 2023. I might be able to wrangle a Schwab debit card when that's all complete. The institution I am using now charged me 6 USD in foreign transaction fees when I used an ATM (years ago when the gap betwen BNA and Blue was not such a yawning abyss). It will be interesting to see what they do if I use my debit card for an actual purchase here, and what rate I get.