29 Jul

Can I use my credit card with US dollars to buy something online overseas being sold in a different currency?

Posted by: admin  /  Category: Buy Currency

I am trying to buy flowers in Australia to deliver to a friend, and I am using a local florist that has an online ordering system. The only problem is is that all the prices are in Australian dollars and I was wondering how it is going to work when I try to use my credit card number to buy the flowers?

I just called my bank and they said there will be a 3% currency exchange charge and there is no minimum charge so so I can buy something for 5dollars and it will just be 5.15 or 500 and it will be 515 as far as I can tell, does that sound reasonable and correct to everyone? i was worried that you had to exchange a minimum amount of dollars like 200 or something and if you bought something less than that it would still exchange the full 200 or something
i’m not worried about any percent fees but any big flat fees or minimums on exchanges would really suck

You would pay the 3% plus probably come out on the short end on the rate of exchange. Not so bad.

The cheapest way, I think, is if you pay with PayPal against your checking account — then you just have the exchange rate ‘loss’ to pay for. If they don’t accept PayPal, or you don’t have an account, just use the credit card. It’s no big deal really.

One Response to “Can I use my credit card with US dollars to buy something online overseas being sold in a different currency?”

  1. SJ Says:
    July 30th, 2010 at 4:54 am

    You would pay the 3% plus probably come out on the short end on the rate of exchange. Not so bad.

    The cheapest way, I think, is if you pay with PayPal against your checking account — then you just have the exchange rate ‘loss’ to pay for. If they don’t accept PayPal, or you don’t have an account, just use the credit card. It’s no big deal really.
    References :

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