d_claude_bear

Capital One offers credit cards with no international surcharge. Is its credit card as widely accepted in Paris as VISA or Mastercard? What has been your experience?

sjj

My Capital One card is a Visa card, and is accepted any place Visa is accepted.

Kristinelaine

My Capital One card is also a VISA card. No problem with it!

nancy1652

I used it everyday for a month with no problems.

Graziella5b

My Capital One is a Master Card, it works as any Master Card, Same if it happen to be Visa

Graziella5b

Let them know you are traveling abroad. They like to know and will give you a spcial number should you have any problem.

djkbooks

Capital One works just fine - Visa or MasterCard.

As mentioned, do phone with your travel dates and get the international number (you can call collect).

nytraveler

There is no such thing as a Capital One Card - that's just the issuing bank (like Chase or Citibank) and what you get is either a Visa or MC - depending on what you ordered. And yes - Visa and MC - from any bank - are both widely accepted.

gracejoan3

Out of curiosity I googled Capital One. They list a number of different cards. I ordered the only one that mentioned the "no charge on International purchases"..It is called the Capital One Platinum Prestige card. That doesn't mean that the others don't do the same, but this one has it in their ad. Mine is on its way.

Most of my cards are Chase or BOA and AMEX. I will take the Capital One card along with others and give it a try.

Travelnut

When you go to Capital One website to choose a card, you'll get a page with all the varieties. Each one has a disclosure page, and each one mentions 'international transactions fee - none'.

ann99bray

I got a Capitol One Visa card especially to use for International Travel as they have no foreign exchange fees. I used mine for a week in Paris in April and then in Ireland in May with no problems. I was also in Denmark in May and noticed that some stores and restaurants in Copenhagen tag on a 5% fee if you use any credit card which I had not encountered in Europe before. Anyone else run into that? As one poster said, be sure and let your credit card company know where you are travelling to.

canterbury

We've had Capital One for years and no problems abroad. I have M/C Platinum (no international fees) and hubby has Visa.

Just make sure you alert them ahead of time that you are going to Europe.

TC

Do make sure you alert them ahead of time when you travel. On our first try at using the Cap One Visa card in Mexico, our charges were refused because we hadn't alerted Cap One in advance. Luckily our daughter was able to contact the company and let them know that we were indeed traveling. You have to dial the Cap One 800 number but then ask for the <u>fraud department</u>. Otherwise you'll be transferred around all day and in the end its the fraud dept. that takes care of this issue.

Mara

Yes, I agree with the above post. Make sure you speak with the Security Dept. Last fall while still in NY, I gave my card number to the school where I was going to take French lessons so they could take a deposit. I called Cap One, explained and they said fine. Needless to say the next day I get an email from the school that my cc was rejected. I called back to Cap One and then was transferred to the Security Dept. and all was straightened out. Why didn't they do that the first time? ;-)

ira

&gt;...some stores and restaurants in Copenhagen tag on a 5% fee if you use any credit card which I had not encountered in Europe before. Anyone else run into that?&lt;

Yup. As long ago as 1978.

Small businesses can't afford the 5% CC charge.

Nikki

I have also encountered the surcharge for credit card use in Denmark, but I can not recall seeing that anywhere else I have traveled in Europe, including the UK, France, Italy, Spain, Greece, and Portugal.

alanRow

Companies can charge a fee for CC use in the UK.

gracejoan3

Re: calling credit card companies prior to trip...I have always called them with dates and countries. I had one experience upon arriving in Nice and giving a card that it was blocked..used another..with time difference had to call them later. They had just failed to note it on the account. So...what I now do..call them twice a few days apart to see if has been noted on the account! Always something..........

MP07950

After seeing an article on the Fodors site, I got a Capital One card for my trip to Paris in May. Even though I didn't plan to use the card often, it's nice to have as a backup. I ended up using it a couple times and was happy to see no surcharges on the bill!

Christina

I have a Capital One Mastercard I've used for years for a lot of my international travel and charges because of the no foreign transaction fee. I always do call their security/fraud dept. before a major trip -- however, I use that card on the internet to buy things or make hotel reservations in other countries, and it's never been declined for that reason, when I haven't notified them. Maybe they are used to me having a lot of foreign charges, I don't know, but they've never declined my card for just one foreign charge.

For example, I just used it online a couple weeks ago to buy a concert ticket in Switzerland for July, and they processed that one transaction with no problem.