This is like a hidden charge they have...it;s negociated with their issuing bank to post lower exchange rates, so they can get some pretty good $$$ on that.
Imagine 2-3% of millions of $$$/month.
They claim that "it's not us, it depends on the bank that you are using", however i make a test :
i have several cards issued by forign banks : 1 from US, 1 from St. Vincent, 1 from Canada and one from Netherland Antiles (Epassporte). All are drawn on USD.
I made onde widtrawal in local curency from each card, in the same ammount, same bank, same time (1 min differece). 3 Days latter, i checked the online statement for all the cards. Epassporte was the worst exchange rate i got, with a difference of arround 2-3% from the other cards.
So, it's not necesarely the aquiring bank fault, it's mainly epassporte that is ranking tens of thousents of $$$ from the bad exchange rate.
After all, they have to make a living
