Travel Credit Cards

Visa and Mastercard are essentially the same in terms of merchant acceptance outside of the United States so neither has an advantage for foreign travelers. Visa and Mastercard have different country-specific policies regarding car rental while abroad so this can be important to understand prior to travel.

Swipe, or merchant acceptance, fees do tend to be higher for travel cards. The reason major card networks charge merchants higher fees for these types of cards is because card usage and charge volume tends to be higher compared to non-rewards credit cards.

All credit cards issued in the U.S. by Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover now have security chips and still typically require signatures at checkout with most merchants and can be inserted into point of sale terminals or the chip can be read by holding the card over the terminal reader.  Chip and signature cards still carry a magnetic strip on the back which can be swiped through point of sale terminals as well. They are different from cards outside of the U.S. which require a four-digit PIN to be entered at the point of sale.

Any credit card fee that the customer doesn’t feel is fair can be contested. Studies have shown that it is remarkably effective to simply call the customer service number of the card issuer to ask for a fee to be removed. Certain factors such as how long you’ve been a customer, if your account is in good standing and politeness can influence the level of success when asking for fee waiver or reduction.