Or "The Incredible Shrinking Credit Card."
Planning a trip overseas any time soon? If you're like me and don't often read the fine print on those ubiquitous "Notices of Change in Terms" that seem to come every other month with your VISA, you may be in for a rude awakening. I was alerted to this one by my father, who reads the fine print on everything.
For each purchase made in a foreign currency, we add an additional FINANCE CHARGE of 3.0% of the amount of the purchase after its convesion into U.S. dollars.
"Change banks," I told him. "That's ridiculous." But when I went to check, I saw that my bank had done it, too (effective April 2, 2005).
It's not bad enough that the purchasing power of the dollar abroad is a pale shadow of what it was just a few years ago. Now your bank gets to rake off another three percent of the inflated prices you pay for food, lodging and souvenirs on your European vacation.
So will travelers' checks make a come-back? Or is this a good excuse to simply keep it closer to home? It's a big, beautiful country, after all.
