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  • Smccoyphd

    How can I tell which Chase cards have stopped charging foreign transaction fees? I heard they did this recently but can’t find the fine print.

  • Brad Freeley

    Now that they are waiving the foreign fees, I can start using this abroad to get the 5x Marriott Bonus, instead of using my Cap One Venture card.

  • Mljlma

    I can not find an application website which reflects the terms of no foreign transaction fees. The terms still show a 3% fee.

    • http://www.nerdwallet.com/ Tim

      It didn’t go into effect until March 31st, and Chase is often slow about
      updating the terms and conditions pages on their site.

      The Marriott site, however, does correctly mention the waived fee.

  • QM

    I’m not sure I understand how you’re doing your math. How does this Marriott card merit a reward rate of 1% when your analysis indicates that Marriott points are worth (at most) .6 cents per point in “one of the worst point programs we have ever seen”?

    • http://www.nerdwallet.com/ Tim

      Thanks for the note QM, good catch. We will fix our database ASAP.

  • Ankit Gupta

    How do you calculate their reward points being worth 1 cent each? (50,000 points = $500)

    There a listing of where the hotels lay here: http://boardingarea.com/blogs/loyaltytraveler/2010/03/14/marriott-hotel-category-distribution-and-2010-hotel-changes/
    The cost of each category is here: http://www.marriott.com/rewards/pointsGridPopUp.mi?awardType=Standard

    Looks like 50,000 points could get a few nights in the category 2 and 3 hotels.

    • http://www.nerdwallet.com/ Tim

      Ankit, we estimated the value of points on a number of different hotel chains a year ago with the following methodology:

      1.) Over the same time period, use Kayak to find the price of hotel rooms for each chain and in each category
      2.) Figure out how many points are required to get those same nights for free
      3.) Divide

      It’s been a year, so some of these programs have likely changed a bit in the meantime. And these calculations don’t take into account one-off deals, rewards specials, seasonal pricing, or elite status. So we believe it’s a good indication of average value to the average traveler, but frequent travelers or those with more flexible schedules can probably get more value out of them.

      For a breakdown of our experiment, see our infographic here: http://www.nerdwallet.com/infographics/hotel-rewards

      Hope that helps!

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