Best Credit Cards for International Travel

A foreign transaction fee of a few percent sounds trivial until you total a two-week trip's spending. It is the first filter, and it removes a surprising number of otherwise fine cards.

The second filter is acceptance. Visa and Mastercard are accepted essentially everywhere; American Express acceptance is excellent in some countries and patchy in others, particularly at small independent businesses in Europe and much of Asia. Carry a Visa or Mastercard as a backup regardless of your primary card.

How Flying Frugal judges a card

We are a flight-deal site, so we evaluate credit cards on one question: does this card reduce the cost of travel you were going to do anyway? A card that earns a currency you cannot use, or whose benefits require spending you would not otherwise make, does not pass — no matter how large the welcome offer looks.

We do not currently have affiliate relationships with card issuers, so nothing on this page is an application link and no card is ranked because of a payout. When that changes, paid links will be labelled as advertising, and the editorial order will not move to accommodate them.

• Does the rewards currency reach airlines that actually serve your home airport?
• Are the recurring benefits ones you would use without changing your behaviour?
• Is the annual fee smaller than the fees, insurance and travel spending it displaces?
• Would you keep the card in year two, after the welcome offer is gone?

The protections worth paying for

Read the benefits guide, not the marketing page: coverage limits, the definition of a covered delay and whether the trip must be paid with the card all vary. Our travel insurance article covers when card coverage is enough and when it is not.

• Emergency medical and evacuation coverage — the one that can be genuinely catastrophic without it.
• Trip delay reimbursement — long-haul disruption means a hotel and meals at short notice.
• Primary rental car collision coverage — declining the counter's expensive waiver abroad is where this pays for itself.
• Baggage delay coverage — most useful on itineraries with a tight connection.

Practical rules for using the card overseas

• Always choose to be charged in the local currency. Dynamic currency conversion at the terminal is a worse rate than your card network's.
• Tell the issuer nothing — travel notices are largely obsolete — but do make sure push notifications are on so a declined transaction is fixable in seconds.
• Carry a second card on a different network, stored separately from the first.
• Withdraw cash with a debit card that refunds ATM fees; credit card cash advances are expensive from the first day.