| Both Debit and Credit cards work so long as your bank allows it. Some banks provided such a conversion service for free, some do it for free if you have a certain type of account (my uncle has a business checking that will do it for free), some banks will ding you for the conversion but will allow you to make overseas purchases. (My bank ding me about $0.50 per transaction from US$ to JP-Yen.)
Generally, banks that has a lot of international recognition and has branches overseas can do conversions for their customers without mentioning it. Examples are Bank of America and Citibank (and the formerly California Federal Bank).
So if you have a small local bank, that bank might not be able to do it. I have heard a lot of people with Washington Mutual and Wells Fargo that will not do foreign currency conversion on the debit cards for their customers. (Unless specifically otherwised arranged.) And for the small banks, to have it arrange to allow automatic exchange it might get prohibitly expensive in the long run.
Also, some people with actual credit cards were declined because it won't do a foriegn exchange, I believe Providian was one of those cards. (Need to verify that.) So it is not necessarily card specific, but more bank specific. Different banks have different standard set of services, so you should consult with your "financial advisor" at your "financial institution" for details.  Signature was intentionally left blank. |