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What is the best credit card for foreign FX spending when someone else is paying?

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We write a lot on Head for Points about ways to minimise the 2.99% foreign exchange fee added to most credit and debit card transactions outside the UK.

For personal travel you might want to get a separate free credit card to use abroad.  There are no travel rewards credit cards without a foreign exchange fee globally, although the Virgin Atlantic credit cards are fee-free in the Eurozone.

best credit card for foreign FX spending

Another loyalty option for personal use is the new (2024) Hilton Honors debit cards. These charge either a 0.5% FX fee (83% less than most credit cards charge) or 0% FX fee depending on which one you take. You will also earn Hilton Honors points and, depending on the card, receive Silver or Gold status in Hilton Honors. You can find out more about the two Hilton Honors debit cards here and apply here.

If you have a Limited Company, you DO have a credit card which has 0% FX fees, no annual fee and earns 1 Avios per £1 – the Capital on Tap Visa. Our review is here.

You may choose to act differently when travelling for work

When you are travelling for work, however, your credit card bills will be reimbursed by your employer.  There is no incentive for you to get a separate 0% foreign exchange fee card.

I won’t focus on credit card spend bonuses here because those don’t change whether you are spending in the UK or abroad.  I just want to look at cards which increase your earning rate for FX transactions.

best credit card for foreign FX spending

Here are your two options for reward cards which have extra bonuses for foreign spending but in return add on an FX fee of around 3%.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold offers double points when you spend abroad, which means 2 Membership Rewards points per £1.

This translates into two Avios or other airline miles, four Hilton Honors points, three Marriott Bonvoy points or six Radisson Rewards points amongst other things.  The card is free for the first year.

Interesting, The Platinum Card from American Express – which has a £650 annual fee – does not offer this benefit.

FX spend may also help you trigger another Amex Gold benefit. You receive 2,500 bonus Membership Rewards points for every cumulative £5,000 you spend, up to a maximum of 12,500 bonus points per year.

This means that a £5,000 spend in a foreign currency would earn 12,500 Membership Rewards points. This is made up of 5,000 base points, 5,000 FX spend bonus points and a 2,500 points bonus for hitting another £5,000 milestone.

Our American Express Preferred Rewards Gold review is here. You can apply here.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers.  T&C apply, 18+, subject to status. Click here to apply.

best credit card for foreign FX spending

HSBC Premier and HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercards

The two HSBC Premier cards offers bonus points when spending abroad.

On the free card, you are earning 2 HSBC points per £1 on overseas spend. This is worth 1 Avios or other airline mile instead of the standard 0.5 Avios or other miles per £1.

On the World Elite card, which has a £290 annual fee, you would be earning 4 HSBC points per £1 on overseas spend. This means you are getting 2 Avios or other airline miles instead of the standard 1.5 Avios or other miles per £1.

You must have a HSBC Premier current account to apply for either of these cards, which has strict eligibility criteria. HSBC Premier is free, however, so if you do meet the income criteria it isn’t a bad option for your day to day banking and is (just) a step ahead of your average current account.

Our HSBC Premier credit card review is here and our HSBC Premier World Elite card review is here. You can apply here.

Conclusion

As you can see there are a couple of good options here that can get you a return of around 2% on your non-Sterling spending. This assumes that you value an Avios or airline mile at 1p.

That is less than the 3% foreign fee you are incurring, of course, which is why these are not attractive cards for personal spending outside the UK. Save them for business expenditure.

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earns points from credit cards

Want to earn more points from credit cards? – April 2025 update

If you are looking to apply for a new credit card, here are our top recommendations based on the current sign-up bonuses.

In 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

Get 5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

You can see our full directory of all UK cards which earn airline or hotel points here. Here are the best of the other deals currently available.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 30,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

30,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

80,000 bonus points and great travel benefits – for a large fee Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

18,000 bonus points and 1.5 points for every £1 you spend Read our full review

Earning miles and points from small business cards

If you are a sole trader or run a small company, you may also want to check out these offers:

American Express Business Platinum

50,000 points when you sign-up and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Capital on Tap Pro Visa

10,500 points (=10,500 Avios) plus good benefits Read our full review

Capital on Tap Visa

NO annual fee, NO FX fees and points worth 1 Avios per £1 Read our full review

British Airways American Express Accelerating Business

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

Category

American Express Gold card, HSBC Premier Mastercard

Comments (51)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Ian says:
    16 Mar16 March 05:34

    Why not just use Curve to recharge to any mastercard or visa?

    Surprised it wasn’t mentioned.

    It still works fine.

    Also Virgin Atlantic credit cards do not add fx fees in Poland, Sweden or Romania either.

    • Patrick says:
      16 Mar16 March 06:45

      I agree, I use Curve with my free avios barclaycard all the time abroad, saves me a fortune and I get Avios ! The fee is covered by the 36,000 Avios. I get by paying into my NS and I savings account every month.

    • Neil says:
      16 Mar16 March 07:49

      That’s good to know. Any other non-Euro European countries or know where to find a list?

      • ed_fly says:
        16 Mar16 March 07:50

        But do any of these earn 2 points per £ spent?

      • Kevin says:
        16 Mar16 March 08:40

        Iceland had no fx fee on Virgin CC in December

        • Rob says:
          16 Mar16 March 09:40

          Yes, in practice 0%FX goes wider than the list they produce.

          • LittleNick says:
            16 Mar16 March 14:10

            @Rob, Amex does list the FX fee but only within the transaction details itself. Obviously much preferable than having a separate line for the FX Fee when claiming.

    • John says:
      16 Mar16 March 08:01

      If you have a paid curve because it makes sense for your personal spend anyway then yes, you might as well save your employer some money and use it for your reimbursable expenses too.

      Otherwise the point of this article is for your employer to pay the forex fee and they are unlikely to reimburse a curve subscription.

      • Sam says:
        16 Mar16 March 08:55

        Why would you purposefully charge your employer FX fees and risk they not reimbursing you especially if they have a policy already in place for expenses

        • BBbetter says:
          16 Mar16 March 11:18

          The assumption is employer allows the fx fees to be reimbursed. Obviously if employer wouldn’t, it’s a moot point.

        • kevin86 says:
          16 Mar16 March 14:44

          “Why would you purposefully charge your employer FX fees”

          Because I couldn’t care less and I’ll get them reimbursed. If the employer has a problem with that then they need to give you a corporate card

    • mzb says:
      16 Mar16 March 10:52

      The cash back is for foreign spend outside Europe. So fine for US, Asia, etc. No cash back in Europe

      • Kevin C says:
        16 Mar16 March 12:31

        Good point. I’ve only been further afield recently so hadn’t worked that out.

      • John says:
        17 Mar17 March 00:09

        Note that all former Soviet countries count as Europe for this purpose so no 1% back there. French Polynesia etc too

    • Gosia44 says:
      16 Mar16 March 17:00

      Sorry, just noticed that others already responded.

  • Mike Shaw says:
    16 Mar16 March 06:03

    You make no reference to Starling Bank! It has no charges at all for anywhere in the world! It is a debit card and l have used it for years with no issues ever.

  • Linda says:
    16 Mar16 March 08:28

    If credit cards, the list should surely include the Halifax Clarity card

  • Luke says:
    16 Mar16 March 09:14

    NatWest Travel Rewards card is 0% FX and earns rewards on spending abroad

    • David says:
      16 Mar16 March 10:50

      There seems to be an aversion to anything NatWest here. E.g. can exchange rewards for Avios.

      • Rob says:
        16 Mar16 March 11:49

        It’s a bad deal compared to other routes and just creates noise, confusing people. If they did sign up deals that would change.

        As I’ve said before, if there is an editorial secret to why HfP works it’s that our key focus is not ‘what more can we add here’, it’s ’what more can we delete’.

    • RussellH says:
      16 Mar16 March 11:01

      Not clear from reading the website what the Rewards actually are, but it gives the impression of being primarily cash back. Any hotel points opportunities?

      • QFFlyer says:
        20 Mar20 March 22:53

        Yeah, the Amex Gold, as stated it earns double MR, which means you can tx to twice as many Hilton, Marriott or Raddisson points.

  • blue_wolf says:
    16 Mar16 March 09:29

    Many people here in the comments are missing the point. If my employer is picking up the bill, I really couldn’t care less about minimising FX fees since they’re re-charged to my employer. Rather, I prefer to maximise rewards. 2 MRs for a 3% fee is a great deal for me as an employee since I’m not paying that 3% fee. I actually earn better on business trips abroad than business trips in the UK!

    (Bonus points if you can also pay for work flights on your Amex Gold too for double/triple points… Amex Gold is the best card for expenses for the international business traveller.)

    • christian kemp says:
      16 Mar16 March 09:36

      Hang on, does Amex Gold give you double points on travel? This changes the Gold v Platinum conversation for me. I spend probably £20k on work flights per year (based on 4 * £5k returns) plus say £5k on hotel and food whilst there.

      • Rob says:
        16 Mar16 March 09:39

        Only flights booked direct with a airline or anything booked at Amex Travel.

        • christian kemp says:
          16 Mar16 March 10:10

          Thanks, so thats not ideal for me, as normally I have to use my companys corporate travel agent, unless I can get it cheaper elsewhere. But that would often be another travel agent, rather than elsewhere.

          Rob would you mind explaining what you meant when you said your net cost of a Bluechain fee is 1.25% (or whatever it was). I cant understand why it isnt 2.3% minus 25% corp tax? I am an additional rate tax payer, and my income is a combination of salary and dividends.

          Many thanks!

          • Rob says:
            16 Mar16 March 10:26

            You’re not factoring in the corporate tax your business pays, which is also effectively your money if its your business. There is no real difference now between salary or dividend when you adjust for the tax paid by the company.

            For various boring reasons HfP is not in a corporate structure so it’s a straight 45% tax plus 2% NI saving for all expenses I can write off to HfP.

          • christian kemp says:
            16 Mar16 March 10:31

            Got it, thank you Rob.

    • aDifferentSimon says:
      17 Mar17 March 09:32

      I have an odd moral compass – I will try and minimize fx fees to my employer but I will try and divert corporate entertaining to the amex 20% off list!

  • John says:
    16 Mar16 March 10:02

    Could be wrong, but the Halifax World Elite Mastercard gives up to 1% cash back and a working PP for one person ( can add a sub ) for £15 a month – no FX fees for three years.

  • BBbetter says:
    16 Mar16 March 11:24

    Does using the Bonvoy Amex card for paying at Bonvoy hotels abroad make it a zero cost deal?

    • Rob says:
      16 Mar16 March 11:45

      Pretty much, at 6 points per £1. I am having a similar debate as I have a big chunk of EU Bonvoy spend over Easter and was wondering how best to pay. I might do it because it covers a lot of ground to trigger the free night voucher too.

  • Lonli-Lokli says:
    16 Mar16 March 22:09

    Halifax Clarity & Barclaycard Rewards?

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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