Final onboard credit card charge higher than onboard charge

[tango9]

Disembarked Explora Journeys last week to find my credit card charged ten percent higher than my final bill. Does Explora add a final tax on things? No one ever mentioned that the bill would be higher

[uktog]

Final bill onboard is in euros. Charge to your card is in your local currency- that would account for the difference 

[crickette]

And your credit card charges a fee for foreign transactions in addition to the exchange rate.  There are very few cards that don't charge this foreign transaction fee.  

[tango9]

Thank you. That would explain it. They told us it was an equal exchange but they were not quite correct in saying that

[perakcruiser]

1 hour ago, crickette said:

 There are very few cards that don't charge this foreign transaction fee.  

Yes, very few, but they exist. Thankfully.

[Host Jazzbeau]

7 hours ago, perakcruiser said:

Yes, very few, but they exist. Thankfully.

Many actually, including some with no annual fee and also cash back.

[Nunagoras]

22 hours ago, tango9 said:

Disembarked Explora Journeys last week to find my credit card charged ten percent higher than my final bill. Does Explora add a final tax on things? No one ever mentioned that the bill would be higher

Don't know for EJ specifically, but mainstream MSC uses a French bank for their accounting and your cabin charge will be in Euros. You'll pay your banks exchange fee, plus a possible international transaction fee, depending on from where you are.

[Hlitner]

On 12/25/2023 at 2:29 PM, tango9 said:

Thank you. That would explain it. They told us it was an equal exchange but they were not quite correct in saying that

10% makes sense since a Euro is currently worth about $1.10.  Everything on EJ1 was done in Euros which was interesting.  We had received a lot of On Board Credit, which we thought was issued in US Dollars, but once on the EJ1, all of our OBC was applied in Euros.