"Abuse" in this context would probably mean intentionally getting a credit card in the US and then making a bunch of purchases in the EU with the specific intention of screwing over your bank/card company with the interchange fee difference, which obviously not many people are going to have the will, time, or money to do, especially not "consistently."

Even just using the word "use," US cards are designed for and promoted to people who live in the US, and are likely to do most (if not all) of their shopping in the US. Absolutely, there's nothing morally wrong with getting a US card and using it a bunch in the EU, but the point is that the number of people doing that is low enough for the banks/card companies to just subsidize the fees.

There is no possible way to construe abuse. None. Zilch.

Credit cards, from nearly their inception, have been widely promoted to be used when travelling. The cards could charge for foreign transactions but they choose not to, obviously to promote use overseas.

They could simply specify that the rewards only apply to US purchases, yet they don't.

They could notice that I've been committing this "abuse" for TEN YEARS and cut me off, yet they don't. They keep on upgrading me instead.

> Credit cards, from nearly their inception, have been widely promoted to be used when travelling.

Sure, many of them might be "promoted" for travel (never mind you not providing any citations or statistics for this statement). The vast majority of people probably can't afford the money or vacation time to travel internationally more than once, maybe twice per year (at least in the United States, where most destinations require going overseas).

Nobody is attacking you, no need to take this so personally. The point was that the reason they still give you the rewards that the EU's lower processing fees can't fund is possibly because they're making enough extra from the customers not doing what you're doing to fund it. That's all.