A few weeks back I got a letter from Chase bank saying that the Amazon-Chase visa card is going to be phased out sometime in March! The benefits of this card was the Amazon points and no fee when I am travelling abroad i.e. if I bought a coffee at Heathrow for 3 pounds, I will just pay its equivalent in Canadian Dollar with no surcharge/processing fees!
Does anyone know of similar or better alternatives?
I have this same card and face the same issue. I participate in a long thread on another website about the issue and the recommendations, thus far, are limited:
Fido - has a rewards credit card through Rogers. It does have a 2.5% exchange surcharge, but you get a total of 4% rewards back on it at the end of the year, which makes it net 1.5% bonus. Unfortunately, the rewards can only be used on Rogers products and services (like Fido, Rogers, etc.).
Home Trust - has a credit card with no currency exchange surcharge. However, it is not available in Quebec and is apparently limited to ten transactions per day, which may be somewhat limiting if you are doing microtransactions like your coffee purchase. They are also a small institution and right now, are taking six to eight weeks to process credit card applications.
Perhaps another option will become available for us, but these are the only ones of which I know.
People who are primarily concerned with US transactions can work around it by getting a Canadian-issued US-dollar credit card. Purchasing US dollars from one's bank is cheaper than paying the exchange rate on most credit cards. But this doesn't solve the problem for people making frequent purchases in other currencies.
