I am in the same boat and sorry to hear that for both of us. How long of a covid insurance policy did you get? I noticed the minimum is 30 days, but I don't know if you need more with a one-year retirement visa do you need a whole year of covid-19 insurance when you come to Thailand?
that's a question Google can answer better than I can. Some cards from Chase Bank don't have a foreign transaction fee. I'm sure there are many others. One good place to check is
Why not just upgrade to a credit card from USA with no foreign transaction fees? Then you get the points and other benefits. And the benefits are probably better than a tie card.