Foreign tx fees for US travelers

[pjl]

I just rec'd my credit card statement and was surprised by a 3% foreign transaction fee on top of the tour price. Got me wondering if I could have avoided that fee by purchasing through a US based travel agent instead of buying direct online, or if a TA would just pass that fee through. Anyone know? Anything else I could have done differently to get the charge processed in the US?

[graybeard]

Yes, this fee imposed by the credit card companies is annoying, to say the least. Once I found out that GAdventures uses an overseas processing agent, thus resulting in the fee (in Malta, if I remember correctly), I just starting paying my check. The Toronto office had no problem with this.

[pjl]

Good suggestion. I'm so used to plastic it never occured to me to pay by check!