WELCOME TO OUR TRAVEL BLOG

When you travel for work, there are some pretty great perks that come along with it. Ostensibly, it’s free airfare, free food, and a free hotel stay –basically a free vacation right? Well, while it may seem that way to your friends who work exclusively from their corner offices, a business traveler knows better. A true jetsetter knows the agony that comes with the dreaded expense report. This hassle is especially relevant in the case of business trips abroad. While trying to deal with jetlag, your presentations, and schmoozing with your clients, there is little to no downtime, so all the precious personal time you have should definitely not be spent meticulously weeding through your expense reports.

Luckily, these days the luxury of using a debit or credit card and the perks of online banking can do a lot of the work for you. Which is great because who has the time or patience to keep receipts and manually enter in all that information? Not you.

Even still, though, there is plenty you can do to ease the worry of breaking the bank on your travel expense budget; which will make both you and your boss happy. Let’s get to learning!

The basics of foreign transactions

First thing’s first –when you charge anything to your card while abroad you will be faced with a choice: To be charged in local currency or in your native currency. One might say, why does this matter? This differentiation completely changes the fees applied to the charge as well as dictates when the fees will be charged to your account. So, in regard to an expense report –big deal.

Let’s take a closer look. When choosing to pay in the local currency, which honestly is what most of us do just as a default, two things happen.

One: the amount you are immediately charged won’t be the final amount charged. Any additional fees charged, and there will be additional fees for an international charge, will not initially displayed. Additionally, the exchange rate isn’t immediately taken into account, so the actual amount could be skewed beyond your eyeballing abilities. This delay and miscalculation can cause you big headaches when adding up all those dinners you charged in Korean Won instead of your native currency.

Two: There will be a transaction fee charged to your account, again delayed. Hot tip: hidden fees can and should always be avoided.

One way to avoid those hidden fees, is to opt to be charged in your native currency rather than the local currency. This option eliminates the  fee and also takes care of that exchange rate dilemma. This option completely takes out the guess work of figuring out today’s exchange rate and trying to figure out when an accurate final amount will show up on your bank card statements. Of course, with that perk of transparency comes a fee. Instead of the native currency fee, you will be billed a Dynamic Currency Conversion fee, or DCC. However, what’s great about this fee is that it is included in the final price you see at the time of purchase. This option makes it a lot more difficult to goof on the ever-looming expense report.

Simply knowing that little bit of information can help you make your budget stretch without making your boss fume. There is no such thing as too much knowledge, or too many reminders. When traveling for business, it’s sometimes tough to remember all these tidbits about something we take for granted when at home. Which is completely understandable; travel can be an exhausting task on its own, but add workshops, presentations, interviews, luncheons, conferences, co-workers, and hopefully some type of personal life? It’s a tall order to ask yourself to know it all. So to close, here are a few closing tips to take with you on your next transatlantic trip!

Final Tips

It might seem like a no-brainer but often this task is pretty low on a jetsetter’s to-do list: Know your exchange rate! Knowing this information beforehand can really help you make a better decision about which currency would be more beneficial to you throughout your trip. Additionally, while international fees are important each bankcard has different regulations and policies about the fees charged for international purchases. Be sure to check in with your card issuer and confirm all the fees you stand to be charged while away; you can put this information into your expense account early and save yourself precious downtime while out on the road. And finally, even if you read this article and use it as a bookmark throughout your trip –you might have questions about a certain purchase. Don’t ever feel like you have to make an uninformed decision. Inquire about all the available options for your purchases and make your budget work for you.