www.CostaRicaTicas.com

I just received my credit card bill with some charges from my recent C.R. trip. The hotel in Jaco charged me in colones and it appears I got a lousy exchange rate. I lost about $4 per hundred on the exchange. Kind of surprised me as I thought this was more of a problem when getting a cash advance with a card and not regular charges. Not a lot of money but a lesson learned I guess.

BTW the DR charged me in US dollars so no exchange problem with that bill.

FWIW,

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MidnightRider

DR must have an unusual CC setup. When you charge on your CC in Costa Rica the charge is processed by Creditmatico (sp) and is done in colones only. Credtmatico will not allow a transaction in dollars.

The colones charge is then converted into US $ by your credit card company. Any problem with that exchange rate is by your card issuer not the CR entity.

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Pura Vida
Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four
essential food groups:
alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat.
Alex Levine

Most American Credit Card companies have recently instituted a 1.5-2% added charge on currency conversions for charges made on their cards in the native currency and then billed in dollars. I guess they realized that their conversion service was the best deal around and they were missing out, so they changed it. I know for a fact that my Amex, Master Card, and Visa have all instituted this type of policy within the past year. Anything more than 2% was added somewhere else besides your credit card company.

I have no idea if it makes any difference as I haven't looked into it but My AA personal card used to get the 1.5 to 2% surcharge on top of the worst possible exchage rate...

MY AA business card is getting the proper exchange rate with no Surcharge.. I'm going to do some research but for whatever reason there is a distinct difference between both cards....

Again any discrepancies are directly attributed to your applicable CC Company not CR....

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Thank you for supporting CRT!

Interesting, I do have an American Express corporate card. But I didn't even take it along as some places don't take AE. Guess I should try the AE card at least once next time and see what happens.

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MidnightRider