Wizard Mastercard Clear Advantage rejection?

[moa999]

Like most credit cards I believe they take the most favourable rate (to them) from a multitude of sources.

I have logged 50+ overseas txns with the card.
In times of flat fx rates it is consistently 0-0.4% within xe.com (including a couple which were to my benefit)

In days when the fx rate has been shifting rapidly (eg Sep/Oct 08 when I was in Europe -- made Russia very expensive), it has been as much as 2% outside xe.com

They also seem to change rates more than once a day.

 

[KateMayo]

I've been very happy with the exchange rates I've been getting in the UK of late. Many have been better than xe.com rates.

 

[serfty]

My recent experience was quite good. No time to dig that post up ATM.

Here's my post on that experience:

It is really cheaper to use!

On 6th June I had a transaction of USD42.50 at DFW. This was charged at AUD53.12.

Putting this though XE - Credit Card Charges Calculator gives a rate ~½% in my favour:

Date on transaction receipt:                    June 6, 2009
Amount on transaction receipt:                  42.50 USD
Mid-market rate for USD to AUD on 2009.06.06:   1.26070
(Excluding bank charges) 
Value of transaction in your currency:          53.58 AUD
(Excluding bank charges)
Amount shown on credit card statement:          53.12 AUD
Your "hidden" fee estimate:                     0.00 AUD ( 0.000% )
ACTUAL BANK FEES for this purchase:             -0.46 AUD ( -0.858%)

 

[Warks]

I applied yesterday being self-employed for the last 10 months and all. Gave them info about the other cards and the mortgage. Bang! The robot offered me an $8000 limit.
You do wonder how it all works.

 

[zzyss]

Just applied and was conditionally approved... wish me luck!

(Heading to HK and Korea in Nov, and hoping to use this)

Edit: I also buy from overseas online merchants quite regularly, so I'll probably be using this card for that too, while trying to convince myself that paying a lower price is more important than earning points

 

[Danger]

I've lucked out again. I purchased my next DONE4 out of South Africa last week. The charge went through on my Wizard MC in rand, naturally. According to oanda.com and MasterCard (in the US), who both had the same rate last Friday, the date of the transaction, I was overcharged $121. According to xe.com I was overcharged $102.

 

[serfty]

I've lucked out again. ...

When rates are so volatile, large forex purchases can be a gamble.

I'm sure it would have been far worse with most other cards.

 

[SeaWolf]

I've been making a few small purchases lately (books) in GBP and finding that I'm generally getting a small discount, so it really is luck of the draw I think.

 

[AndyA]

As you know I got rejected, so my mum ended up applying and got an extra card for me since they wouldn't allow guarantors. They gave her a $8000 which is crazy and not needed, so I'm telling her to get them to put the limit at $2000, can this be done?

Thanks

Just wondering how you went with using your mums account but with your own card with the Wizard Setup o/s?

I started my own business and have been self employed for the last 6 months so I got rejected for a Wizard CA card...but my mother offered to apply and get my name put on the card or something like that but I didn't think that would work too well o/s?

Is this what you did?

 

[snufl]

Does anybody have any experience with the actual exchange rates used for foreign transactions on the Wizard MC? I know there is no foreign transaction fee but I'm curious as to how GE's exchange rates stack up against the rate of the day (at least according to xe.com and oanda.com).

I found this link. https://www.mastercard.com/us/personal/en/cardholderservices/currencyconversion/index.html
I can't guarantee it is correct but I did check one Euro transaction I made (you need to know and look up the date the transaction was processed) and it was correct.

You could check it each day against xe.com to get a pattern.