this happened well over a year ago. irritated me too. i have yet to root out an alternative, but then again i haven't spent much time on matters. L, i assume to get a card issued in a country other than america, you have to be a resident of said country? i knew i shouldn't have closed out my german bank account!

Check your agreement carefully. It's not always clear what's going on. I had this happen to me as well. On further investigation, it turned out they had always been covertly hosing me on the exchange rate but that the new agreement gave me a better deal on the rate but made the hosing explicit. As so many issuers seem to be doing this at more-or-less the same time, I halfway suspect there may be some legal reason behind this change/disclosure.

you're right, Anonymous. the law did change. however, the bank that issues one of my debit cards has been kind enough to eat the fees for the time being (very small volume of international customers so it's not cost effective to upgrade the system to handle the new "hosing" scheme, or at least that's how it was explained to me). my credit cards, though, have gone to the new fee structure.

I shall look into the issue of whether this touches on the XR or not.

I was well aware the XR was not super and considered that part of the cost of convenience.

Now, if they do a proper XR but hit me with a fee, then it may well be worth it.

Bad XR PLUS hitting me with a fee is an insult (although I am the sort of customer that CC companies hate of course, probably make a loss on me).