Nok Air

[citizen33]

The practice of billing in a foreign currency is a big disadvantage if you have taken the trouble to get a credit card that does not impose a conversion charge or an unfavourable exchange rate. For UK residents the credit cards issued by Nationwide and the Post Office both offer this big advantage, but this is completely lost if, for instance, an hotel bills in GBP at its own exchange rate.

In theory you're right, but don't overlook the big current difference in Thailand between the on-shore and offshore exchange rates.

Currently it's still better to convert in Thailand at the on-shore rate, even at the hotel's lower-than-market rate, and have pounds billed direct to your UK card, than to have the conversion done in UK by your card company at the much worse off-shore rate.

I gave a specific example of my experience in post #6

In case it is lost in the 'cut and thrust' of this thread, I wanted to re-iterate that Filer is wrong on this point. I use the NW card regularly and the Visa exchange rate is close to the onshore rate.

[JimGant]

In case it is lost in the 'cut and thrust' of this thread, I wanted to re-iterate that Filer is wrong on this point. I use the NW card regularly and the Visa exchange rate is close to the onshore rate.

Nationwide (and CapitalOne, unless it's recently changed) are certainly the way to go for using plastic in Thailand, as they're as close as you're going to get to getting the premium Interbank Exchange Rate, which is 20+- satang better than the Telex rate, even before wire fees are factored in.

Several months back, Nationwide (or at least one of its Visa cards) *WAS* charging the offshore rate. It turned out this was because it rides the Cirrus network, not the Plus network (Visa and MC sometime ride the other's network, as there is nothing in concrete about the Visa/Plus and MC/Cirrus relationships). And at the time, the Cirrus network was apparently charging the offshore rate, for whatever reason (Plus never did, which is maybe why this noncompetitive move by Cirrus quickly ended).

Anyway, if you have Nationwide -- and can avoid the DCC ripoff -- you're sittin' pretty.