It is no doubt that you can use your credit card for an international trip. But some of you may not know that many credit card issuers will charge a certain amount of transaction fees for using your credit card aboard. The fees may be up to 8% depending on the credit card terms. So before you leave, you’d better read your credit card agreement from your credit card issuer carefully and find out the one with lowest transaction fees.

Hereby I did a little research and summarized the transaction fees from many US credit card issuers to help you choose out the best credit card for an international trip. Another thing you should be aware is your credit card account might be frozen by your credit card issuer sometimes due to fraud prevention.

Foreign transaction fees are charges added to the cost of purchases made in a foreign currency. The card issuers said the cost covers the service of translating the price of the purchase into U.S. dollars, which is the amount reflected on a billing statement. The foreign transaction fees are varied for different credit card issuers and different types of credit cards.

Whenever you make a purchase at foreign countries with a Visa or MasterCard, you will be automatically charged by Visa or MasterCard Networks. Card issuers will also add some fees for foreign transactions. For example, Chase Sony Card will charge you 3% transaction fee for an purchase made outside US. This 3% includes the above mentioned 1% fee charge by Visa Network. But there is an exception which makes it a very good credit card for using internationally. All Capital One credit cards will get 1% refund for any transactions made using a foreign currency or outside US. The HSBC Household/Orchard Bank credit card with 2% cash back used to not charge additional 2% fees. So with 2% cash back and 1% transaction fee, you can still get 1% cash back for using that credit card aboard. All American Express cards will be charged 2% transaction fee. Discover Card will not charge foreign transaction fees for your purchases made using foreign currency or outside US. So all Discover Cards are good choice for using aboard. The only downside for using Discover Card is they don’t have too many networks outside US. You can only us Discover card at limited countries. While Visa and MasterCard are widely accepted in the word.

Some picks of credit cards for international use:

Capital One No Hassle Cash Rewards Card (Or Capital One No Hassle Miles Rewards Card): There is no annual fee associated with this card. There is also no foreign transaction fee for using aboard. You can accumulate cash rewards for using this card everywhere in the world. You can choose either the cash version or mile version.

Discover More Card: There is no foreign transaction fee for using aboard. You can also get rewards for shopping everywhere in the world. No annual fee. If you are a student, you should choose the Discover Student Card which is specifically designed for students. You may also consider the Discover Miles Card for accumulating miles. But you should expect the situation that you can’t use your Discover Card on an international trip.

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