Hey Everyone
I just got hold of a Citibank Plus account and debit card. I have connected both the bank account and the linkeddebit card to my paypal account.
I was wondering to do the debit card and the account provide 0% international exchange fees or is it just one of them?
I want to make sure I am using the right one.
Thanks
I concur. Just make sure that it is selected out of all of your possible funding sources.
citibank charges no international transaction fee. however, you might still get stung if you decide to use paypal: https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/277252
make sure you use the citibank plus visa debit card as the funding source for your international transactions, that's the one with 0% international transaction fee.
not correct. it depends which Citi card you use.
They both would give you 0% international transaction fee per se.
However, there are a couple of disadvantages I can think of using direct debit from bank account:
you have to use PayPal conversion rate, which gives you much worse exchange rate than visa/mastercard wholesale rate. In that way, you are just paying international transaction fee in a different form.
you can only dispute a transaction with PayPal, which doesn't always end in your favour and you don't have the second option of requesting a chargeback through the bank like people who are using visa/mastercard.
Keep in mind, when you use your Visa card, make sure you change the conversion settings to being charged in seller's currency if you are buying anything that's not in AUD. I think Paypal has been very sneaky when it comes to that. They always try to stuff you with their conversion rates.
There is a setting to permanently making a card to be charged in foreign currency without going through PayPal conversion. It's very much hidden on the PayPal website. after logging in, click on the gear icon (settings) on the top right corner of the account page -> click on payments -> pre-approved payments -> set available funding sources (on the right end of the grey bar), then you can see the option to change the permanent conversion settings for any particular card you are using.
I would personally check the payment option and conversion on payment page every time i pay anyway just to be sure. For some reasons, my paypal keeps using my bank accounts as default, even though i have set my point-earning credit card as default payment method.
I believe PayPal has a rule that it will always take funds in this order ( I called them to confirm)-
Any PayPal balance will be used up first
Your Bank Account next
Your credit card accounts
It doesn't matter if you set the credit card as default, they go through bank account option first.
Also, can anyone tell me if I haven't cleared out my PayPal balance to 0 on checkout, does Paypal make you use their conversion rates for that $ amount left and then give you the option of choosing your credit card conversion rate for the balance? (Or is it all or nothing?)
There is a setting to permanently making a card to be charged in foreign currency without going through PayPal conversion.
I am very sure that I have selected to bypass Paypal conversion before (always my intention to use the 28D card exchange rates), and somehow, it managed to turn itself off.
Fortunately, when I went to purchase, the way it displays the amount seems wrong (telling me the AUD amount), and I went in to check again. Sure enough, it has gone back to Paypal conversion. And so I switched this back again.
So, do not trust that it is permanently changed. It can drop off, for whatever reason.
In my experience, you have to set this once per merchant. I always double check anyway and manually set the payment source to my Citibank Visa debit card.
I will bear this in mind. Thanks.
Thanks for the info guys.
I will first try to not use paypal. If I have to use paypal I will make sure to choose the card and not the bank and double check that paypal is not doing the conversion.
PayPal will default to converting the currency themselves if you pay via Visa or Mastercard. If you pay via Amex, it will stay in the source currency.
There is a way in PayPal to set your Visa/Mastercard to bill in the source currency, but it is embedded in a few options. This way you'll get the best forex rates via Visa/Mastercard, not PayPal's inflated rate.
Just google how to do it, and you'll find it.
There's a way to pay in the overseas currency instead of paying in AUD via PayPal's conversion. Works out just under 3% better with the Citibank card. I remember it making sense but you do have to change it when you're going through the checkout as it won't charge you in the overseas currency automatically.