Similarly, for Amex in the UK: you can use your card abroad, but they charge you 3% (!) on top of their own exchange rate - even for USD transactions.
What's worse - if your foreign transaction is in any other currency than USD, they convert twice: once from the original currency into USD, and then again from USD into GBP. They only charge you 3% once, but you do suffer from their internal, presumably self-serving exchange rates twice.
This is in an environment where there are many UK credit cards offering fee-free foreign transactions at the "true" (no spread) exchange rate, and many more offering true exchange rate + less than 1%.
The Amex offering is laughably poor in comparison.
What's worse - if your foreign transaction is in any other currency than USD, they convert twice: once from the original currency into USD, and then again from USD into GBP. They only charge you 3% once, but you do suffer from their internal, presumably self-serving exchange rates twice.
This is in an environment where there are many UK credit cards offering fee-free foreign transactions at the "true" (no spread) exchange rate, and many more offering true exchange rate + less than 1%.
The Amex offering is laughably poor in comparison.