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Adrian Leeds grew up in New Orleans, attended the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City, spent a year on a kibbutz in Israel before settling into a career and family life, first in Knoxville, then in Los Angeles. In 1994, she brought with her to Paris more than 25 years experience in marketing and public relations, first with Levi Strauss & Co., then with television station promotion, broadcast advertising sales, media purchasing, advertising agency account management for her own firm as well as others, not to mention a daughter.  She is currently in the Marketing and Public Relations division of Western Web Works representing WebFrance International.  Adrian says that she was compelled to write this article after spending hours upon hours researching the credit card situation online and "onphone!"  Adrian wants to ask, "Do the credit card companies want to discourage inquiries?" - Want to live in Paris?

For years, I have taken advantage of my Northwest Airlines WorldPerks Visa credit card (a product of U.S. Bank) to accrue airline miles and gain free travel for myself and my daughter. All my friends know my system – I pay for the entire restaurant bill, they give me cash, I get the miles/points and the best exchange rate possible for converting U.S. dollars into the French francs. It's been a perfect system until now.

This past November 9th, U.S. Bank started imposing a 2% conversion fee on every purchase made outside the U.S. I don't recall receiving any notification, although they said they had. A simple calculation told me that if I used the card like I normally do, than what it would cost me per year was the price of a round-trip ticket Europe / U.S. Immediately, I stopped using the card!
 

For an Internet geek like myself, the next logical step was to surf the Web for information. I found an article in the L.A. Times from May1  about how "a handful of major banks have 'quietly' imposed surcharges of 1% to 4% on purchases made abroad" without providing any new service. No joke! Wish I had known sooner. Then, it was very easy to find several Web sites that help you compare the benefits of all the credit cards. The one I liked best was http://www.cardrevolt.com  and continually went back to the site for basic information. At first, narrowing down the possibilities wasn't all that difficult until the real investigation began and then I discovered the sad truth of it all. There is only one single credit card out there that was found to be worthwhile for an American spending a lot of time out of the country. In fact, they penalize expats – and people like us who travel frequently, especially outside the U.S. Not difficult  to wonder -- is this a "Catch 22" or is it simply ironic?

Many of the primary questions I had were actually learned in the process of discovery, so in many cases, I had to re-phone the credit card company to be sure of the answers. Phoning from France to 1-800 numbers is time consuming and expensive. They are not free when calling from outside the U.S. and of course, you must "jump through all the hoops" -- listen to the instructions, press the right buttons stay on hold till the line is free, etc., etc. before you finally get a live agent on the phone. I also discovered that each aspect of service is provided by different departments, so that a question about miles redemption couldn't be answered by the bank representative and a question about rates couldn't be answered by the awards department. In one case, I ended up phoning four different numbers to obtain the information, some of which was conflicting and one number given me wasn't even correct! I'm sure when I see my phone bill I'm going to find it has cost me another round-trip ticket!

In the end, the annual percentage rate ("apr") didn't matter, the grace period didn't matter, the yearly fee didn't matter – all the things the credit card companies promote openly on their sites and are happy to compare with other cards. The primary questions narrowed down were:

1. Is there a conversion fee and if so how much?
2. What airline restrictions are there?
3. Does travel have to originate from the U.S.?
4. How many miles must be accrued to gain a Europe/U.S. trip?
5. How many miles are accrued for every dollar you spend?

Here's the quick low-down on what I learned:

• You might as well eliminate American Express, Discover and MasterCard, as these cards are not as widely used in Europe as Visa.
• Visa itself imposes a 2% conversion fee to all it's member banks, so it's the decision of the bank as to if they will impose the fee and if so, how much. Some impose as much as 4%!
• Mileage cards attached to specific airlines may restrict your travel to a very limited number of airlines (itself and its partners) and may still charge a conversion fee, such as the Northwest WorldPerks Visa does.
• All mileage cards not attached to specific airlines may allow redemption of the award miles on any major airline, international or domestic, but all travel must originate from the U.S.

Capitol One Miles One Card
http://www.capitalone.com

Chase Manhattan Continental Platinum Card http://securecards.chase.com/servlet/page/ContApp

EverCard Platinum Visa
http://www.gomez.com/deals

First Union AirMiles Plus Card
http://personalfinance.firstunion.com/pf/cda/ps/product_type/0,,26,00.html

Nextcard Fixed Rate Visa
http://nextcard-visa-card.com/

Northwest WorldPerks Visa
http://www.fbs.com/cgi/cfm/credit/worldperks/index.cfm

Security First Network Bank
http://www.sfnb.com 

United Mileage Plus
http://www.firstusa.com

USAA Eagle Points Platinum Card
https://www.usaa.com

Happily I picked up the phone and spoke to the most pleasant telephone agent I had come across in all my research. Her name was Erica, the same name as my daughter. I knew I had arrived home and within minutes, had a telephone application done and in the works. Now I just have to wait the less-than-30-days to have my new card. Then, soon after, United will be seeing our smiling faces instead of the Northwest I had come to know and love. Guess loyalty only ran 2% deep. A Special Note: to apply for a U.S. credit card, you must have a U.S. address and once the account is open, you can easily change the mailing address to your foreign address. Until then, all cards and correspondence will go to your U.S. address.

1 Currency-Exchange Fees Taking Bite Out of Dollars by Christopher Reynolds, Times Travel Writer http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/

2 Other Web sites for credit card comparison and information:

http://www.cardrevolt.com
http://www.eyeoncredit.com
http://www.frequentflier.com/card-air2.htm
http://www.visa.com