Money doesn't actually talk. We do.

Our Holiday Wish List: Five Things from Card Companies

As we all indulge in collective gift lust over the next few weeks, making lists of things we’d like from relatives and updating our Amazon registries, we thought it would be fun to set up wish lists for our financial-services providers too.

So for the next four Wednesdays, we’ll draw up lists of fees that shouldn’t exist, features that should but don’t yet and other things that inspire delight and disgust.

We kick it off today with a handful of requests for the credit-card issuers in our lives:

1) Do Away with Foreign Transaction Fees

Most major credit-card issuers hit us with a fee of up to 3% for every transaction we make outside of the United States. Capital One doesn’t though, and many credit unions and smaller banks don’t either.

Card companies say they need to charge the fees in part because fraud is higher abroad. So are Capital One’s fraud-detection systems that much better? Or are they simply declining to participate in a naked fee-grab?

One New Year’s resolution on my list is to finally get a Cap One card for use abroad. If everyone else did the same thing, these fees would vanish pretty quickly.

2) Put the Whip to Merchants Who Won’t Take Your Card Unless You Spend a Certain Amount

You’ve all seen them – those handwritten notices pasted to the register banning use of credit or debit cards unless the purchase is more than $10 or $20. Well, this sort of thing is against the rules. As a condition of accepting cards, merchants are supposed to let us use them for any purchase of any amount.

Merchants hate this, because it costs them more when we make small purchases. Visa, MasterCard and the banks that issue their cards are well aware that this practice is widespread but have done little to put an end to it.

We plan to enlist you in helping us shame the banks and the merchants when we reveal more of the FiLife site. Stay tuned on that front.

3) Clarity on Reward Redemptions for Card Applicants

Most card pitches come with a reward angle these days, say one point for every dollar you spend. When you try to get into the nitty gritty on how many points you need for what sort of rewards, however, the details are sometimes scant.

Every card issuer should offer a link to the full list of prices, in points, for every reward they offer. This should be accessible to anyone who’s interested in their cards – not just those who have received pitches in the mail and certainly not just those who have already signed up for a card.

4) Better Deals for Better Customers

Bank of America’s new BankAmericard gives 50% more rewards points to people who have another account with the bank. Why don’t more banks do this?

While they’re at it, more cards should offer a sort of elite status for people who run more than a certain amount each year through one card. I’ve run over $75,000 per year through cards recently, and I’m open to offers for, say, massive bonuses when I pass $50,000 and $75,000 within a 12-month period.

5) Itemization of Cash Back from Credit Cards

Some credit cards give you more cash back for purchases at certain retailers, say grocery stores or gas stations.

The dirty little secret here, however, is that you usually can’t tell from the monthly bill whether you got credit at every retailer you were supposed to. Some retailers aren’t properly coded as, say, restaurants – thus denying me the 3% back when I use my Costco American Express card at a restaurant.

Why not? Are the card issuers afraid that people like me would call each month asking for the extra percentage points on a bunch of mis-coded purchases? Or do they not want us to know how large the number is of merchants that are actually coded incorrectly?!

Got something different on your wish list? Drop it in the comments below.

– Ron Lieber

Photo credit: Flickr