U.S. banks are like food buffets in the U.S. They lose money on a few people, but overall they make money because the product and service is so bad.
this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2025
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The bank expects to make money when you don't pay off the monthly balance and they hit you with 27% interest.
Diligent consumers don’t do that. They pay their bill off faster than fees can be incurred. It’s the other consumers, the undisciplined and the poor, who get sucked dry by fees. These are not the demographic of international travelers. One demographic is subsidizing another.
The interesting thing is that if you’re in the diligent demographic, you can make the shitty bank lose money. Profit from those they exploit is the same whether you create a loss for the bank or not.
If you're in that demographic, you can make the bank lose money, only while you're traveling, and only in Europe. They clearly don't care about it, because if the effect was significant enough to matter, they would change their policies.
As it is, it's an incentive to become a customer, and they're ok losing $100 while you travel so they can collect $1000 while you don't.
I think the banks treat people like me as the cost of doing business. :)
I'm sure for every one person who is good at money management, there are hundreds or thousands who are not.
If there weren't, the cards wouldn't exist. :)
Thanks for reminding me to make a payment. I keep that shit pre-paid, so to speak, so the balance due was zero, but I'm vigilant about never letting it cost me money. Paid off the smallish amount that was accruing because fuck my bank.
Is that also capped in Europe?
It's at least way more regulated
It’s probably not a big enough issue that they even worry about it.