JPMorgan Chase & Co. has dropped the foreign-transaction fee on its Continental Airlines Presidential Plus MasterCard credit card — the second cobranded airline card from which it has recently removed the 3% fee.
The issuer in November dropped the fee on its British Airways Signature Visa credit card.
The banking company also removed the foreign-transaction fee from its United Airlines Mileage Plus Visa credit card, said David Gold, a senior vice president at Chase Card Services.
Chase dropped the fee from the Presidential Plus card because research suggested cardholders wanted it done, Gold said. "We want to be able to meet all their needs in a competitive marketplace," he said.
Moreover, issuers do not want to "lose their best customers, which usually are more affluent and lower-risk," said Megan Bramlette, the director of knowledge management at Auriemma Consulting Group in New York. "Charging these cardholders an extra fee for foreign transactions is a fast way to alienate them," she said.
Most cobranded airline cards already carry a "fairly high" annual fee, she said, so issuers do not really need to add 3% on top of that.
Also, as the economy continues to recover, many people are traveling more. Recent survey results from TripAdvisor.com suggested that 36% of U.S. consumers planned to increase their travel this year and 69% said they plan to travel internationally.
