Avoid foreign exchange gouges abroad

Since at least Biblical times, money changers have been gouging foreign visitors exchanging their currency for local shekels.

Fortunately, if you’re going outside the U.S. this summer, you can avoid most of the gouge.

Unless you’re a currency speculator, you’ll almost always lose a little in exchanging your dollars for whatever. That’s because the actual cost of exchanging currency is the 1% or so that the international Visa, MasterCard or American Express networks charge to do the exchange job.

they can — running the cost up to 5% or even more.

Retail foreign exchange desks can use a combination of lousy rates and fees to run your cost up to 10% or more.

But if you’re using the right credit and debit cards, you can limit your loss to the basic 1%.

Travel Tips

By Ed Perkins

But many credit and debit card issuers add their own foreign charges and fees for doing nothing — they gouge because

Credit Card. These days, a lot of credit cards, especially cobranded travel-related cards, have stopped surcharging foreign charges. They no longer charge a fee at all, or add just the fee of 1% or less to cover the network transaction cost.

To keep losses to a minimum, the traveler’s key rule is to put as many bills on a nosurcharge credit card as possible.

Debit Card. You may not need much local currency, but the best way to get what you need is to get it from a local bank’s ATM. But finding the right card and the right ATM can sometimes take some digging.

Although a large foreign bank’s ATM generally uses the bank rate for conversion, when you use a debit card at a foreign bank’s ATM you face up to three possible fees:

— Your bank may assess a fee — typically around three or four dollars — for every ATM transaction at any “foreign” bank, regardless of the amount.

— Your bank may also add a conversion surcharge.

— The foreign ATM may assess a withdrawal fee.

To avoid these gouges, you need a debit card account with a bank that (1) charges