moondog

I've just started using my Discover card in China 5 days ago, and it works pretty much everywhere, but a UnionPay decal would be really nice.

An added bonus would be statement (in Chinese) that no PIN is required.

jamar

Should've said this ages ago, but yes, it works. It will ask for a PIN, but six zeros does the trick.

Also agree with moondog, but would prefer the option of printing the logo right onto the card. I could see merchants looking at a decal'ed card suspiciously.

mousefai

hi,

i wanted to share some problems i have when using discover card in china. I was planned to buy certain expensive products visited few stores and here are their problems. (please notice all store i went to DO accept UNION PAY).

1st store, they told me they wont accept discover card at that time. i showed them the little printout and they still said no. they also called to the unionpay hotline, verified my account is valid but the answer they got from union pay is that their machine was NOT ready to take discover card.

2nd store, they said they would ok to give a try on the credit card. after a swipe, some error messages pops up. The clerk told me to check is the card still valid or not. I went downstairs to buy some 20rmb from supermarket, pay from the card and it worked!! So i go back up and say the card is valid and keep swiping. The swiped total of 5 times and said the same messages pop up again. So i have to find another store.

3rd store, they said they have trained to use discover card and noticed it was treated as a unionpay card. But the superivisor came down and told me that they cant accept discover card starting with 6011. I asked why and she said is just company policies.

4th, the last store, the clerk said they would trained to to use discover card and they CAN accept discover card. However, she said she has NOT seen any one using discover card since she worked. She asked where i came from i said usa and she nicely swiped my card. The card went through and i finally get my stuff.

Conclusion: dont expect all merchant display union pay logo also accept discovercard. I have been to 4 stores and 3 stores were NOT accepting them. I was curisouly to also ask does why this happen? ANy one know?

Thanks.

mnredfox

Wow too bad to hear about this. They key is to make sure they swipe it as if it's a UnionPay card and use the same system. Sometimes there are two systems stores will use.

I would just tell them it's the same thing and ask them to try. Don't try to attract too much attention to it.

mousefai

dear all.

just wanna update u guys on some purchase within china using discover card.

i met a friend, who worked inside on unionpay, told me he staff inside knew the card would work on the unionpay network. however, unionpay would not bother to advertise or tell merchants that about the accepting of the discover.

1st, China is a very protective country. The government wanted to protect their home made companies. (As you know, the shareholder of unionpay is chinese banks, which is also owed by chinese governement). So the governement would not allow a big advertisment on the discover card itself to protect unionpay's profit (unionpay had like 80% market in china).

2nd, There are really some card processing machines that just DO NOT accept discover. (the same machine which used to swipe unionpay). Since Discover had to charge, and unionpay had to charge. The cost of acceping a discover card in China is much bigger. So when you see a unionpay logo in CHINA, dont automatically assume it will also accept discover because the merchants/shopping centres may not entitle to use discover because of the cost.

3rd, EVEN THOUGH the machine do accept union pay. You have to understand chinese people are not brave to break the rules and they tend to follow orders from superior. When they see a card that they dont recognize and there is no logo on it, they will ask their superior. However, their superior didnt know about DISCOVER too. So at last, they JUST WILL NOT SWIPE YOUR CARD FOR ANY REASONS. (especailly if you are buying big $ purchase).

4th, the reason DISCOVER dun put unionpay logo on the card is that the chiense governement DONT allow them to do so. Chinese govt wanted to protect the profit of unionpay. BY ALLOWING THE UNIONPAY LOGO ON THE CARD, IT REPRESENTS THAT THIS CARD CAN BE USE FREELY WHERE UNIONPAY IS DISPLAYED. So DISCOVER are not allow to display the logo.

THanks.

jamar

This I have trouble believing. What can they do if Discover says they'll display it anyway? If they break the UnionPay-Discover link they'll be hurt far more as UnionPay acceptance drops to near-zero in North America without Discover's network. Dual-logo cards will become a lot more popular. Do they think they can build it all back up on their own?

Secondly, that doesn't explain the multitude of shops with those little "welcome" signs that display both UnionPay and Discover logos, just to get the point across.

Then again, this is the same UnionPay that doesn't even properly advertise to merchants how to use their fancy new UPCash technology, so I'd be more likely to ascribe incompetence to it.

mnredfox

Been using Discover the past week, no problems.

PWMFlyer19

I am going to take the jump and get a Discover card this week. Travel to China 6-8 times a year for a week or two at a time. Any new reports about easier acceptance ? Last post from almost 2 years ago. Cheers.

moondog

Acceptance isn't really an issue at all, but sometimes you need to convince/explain that Discover is on Union Pay.

PWMFlyer19

Thanks. I'll report back in a month or so.

cooljw

I printed out a Unionpay logo and glued it to the front of my Discover Card. Pretty much solves the acceptance issue.

However, I have encountered a number of stores - usually not in the big cities - that take Unionpay, but Discover just won't work. Terminal will just say transaction failed (交易失败) or sometimes throw some really odd error message. Seems that not all Unionpay systems accept Discover.

PlyrStar93

Sometimes merchants may use third-party payment services like Alipay, maybe that's the issue. These terminals have direct links to banks, but not through UnionPay.

mnredfox

Used it all over a few weeks ago, no issues.

Yes, I just tell them to "try it". Usually that works. If not I'll tell them it uses the same system as Unionpay.

LOL, I like your idea. Odd though, something fake in China? Seriously, some stores have two POS terminals, one for foreign cards and one for UP. Make sure they use the Unionpay one.

YariGuy

My Discover card is on its way -- I hope it's finally a way to avoid DCC without having to use my Chinese debit card which gets no points.

My question - has anyone successfully linked their Discover card to a smartphone payment service such as Alipay or Wechat? This would be an ultimate coup for me... but it seems too good to be true as you can manufacture spend bigtime by using their money management products or by paying friends.

Edited to add: I have linked up my Chase Hyatt card to wechat, but can only top up my mobile credit with it.

YariGuy

This is the same experience I'm having. At least I don't get DCC'd anymore.