If you haven't traveled internationally before, you might be operating under the assumption that using your credit card is no different than using it at Wal-Mart. Unfortunately this isn't the case; using your credit card in another country can lead to high fees for currency conversion or even a frozen account if your card issuer suspects fraud.

When I recently found out that my sister was planning a winter trip to Africa I took it as my brotherly duty to find the best credit card for her. As luck would have it, Jim from Blueprint for Financial Prosperity, is also traveling abroad soon, and he took an in depth look at the currency conversion fees for popular credit cards in order to find the best credit card to use internationally.

There are three fees that go into determining the total cost of any international transaction, which can add up to 8% to a purchase price. These fees include a foreign currency conversion fee, an issuer fee and a dynamic currency conversion fee. The majority of cards charge at least one of these fees for any international purchase, even if a bill is paid in full before the end of the billing cycle.

Wow! I know businesses everywhere are feeling the need bring in more cash but charging paying customers just to open their files is a bit on the ridiculous side. Joel Watson, creator of Hijinks Ensue a "Geek Webcomic", went to his local FedEx Kinkos to print copies of a several comic strips and was not so politely informed that for every file after the first there would be a "digital rendering" fee of $2.50. To further emphasize the stupidity of this charge, the "digital rendering" fee essentially covers the clerk double clicking on a file!

To me adding $2.50 onto a customer's print order is as dumb as tacking a fuel surcharge onto a taxi ride. Both of these services require what the extra fee is supposed to cover; you can't print a file without opening it just like you can't get anywhere in a taxi without gas. If a company needs to charge an extra fee in order for a service to remain viable then the price should simply be raised rather than hidden on a receipt or behind a technical sounding phrase like "digital rendering"!

While you may not know it; merchants have to pay a fee to use the credit card machines which typically is 2% of the actual purchase price. To defray this cost of doing business many retailers factor the 2% fee into the shelf price for items which leaves cash-paying customers shelling out the same 2% overhead on their purchases too. During this year your family will spend on average $427 to cover these fees while the credit card companies net a cool $48 million from the interchange fees.

You can't make that kind of money in the U.S. without attracting attention from Congress and lobbying groups especially when your industry is already under fire for high interest rates and complicated anti-consumer fees and fine print. Congress is looking to regulate the interchange fee with the Credit Card Fair Fee Act of 2008. This fee is a cost of doing business; get rid of it and you risk a less reliable system or having the cost will moved to a different area under a new name. Even if the retailers can negotiate a lower fee, how likely is it that they will drop prices to reflect it? Consumers are already adjusted to the current price so the profit will stay with the retailer, not be passed to the consumer.