Kremmen

The bank will usually be identified on the receipt and often on the terminal too. I've certainly seen some ANZ terminals that do DCC. It would be interesting to know who else.

SPG Amex is a good option but, being Amex, avoids the whole issue of DCC. (The first time I ever used mine successfully for tap was in Australia, as all the times to that point that I'd tried in the USA had failed.)

percysmith

This experience generally accords with my visit down under last June/July. We were embarassed to bits by the number of times cashiers "plunk" our HKD cards against card terminals and us saying "err you're going to have to stick that into the terminal and have me sign for it".

Majuki

Yep. It's amazing how short memories are as during my first trip to Australia - not that many years ago, I might add - everything was still swipe-and-sign. Now I have to proactively offer, "It doesn't have 'PayPass' " while searching my pockets for a pen.

tmiw

I thought HK had contactless credit/debit cards? Or have the banks there decided to put nearly all their efforts towards ______ Pay like the American ones?

percysmith

They didn't have overseas earn promos so we weren't carrying them in our travel wallets.

Actually the ones that had the overseas earn promos were in the process of being replaced but ours were still in the queue. On return to HK we promptly called the two banks and requested expedited replacement.

patrick.barnes

The only retailer that asked me about DCC in Australia was Uniqlo, last time I was there.

Amex acceptance is generally low. The places that charge CC surcharges also tend to charge more for Amex. In some cases there will be no surcharge for V/MC and a surcharge for Amex.

And yes, everyone taps. It's why the banks there just don't care about Apple Pay (not enough to give Apple a cut, anyway). The way they see it, they put in significant resources into contactless adoption (terminals, ads, etc) and Apple wants to piggyback off that and take their money because they're Apple.

tmiw

There's also the part where the major Australian banks want the right to pass through to their customers whatever Apple charges them (so if Apple charges the bank 5c/transaction, the bank wants to charge the customer the 5c too). The bank's own app would likely be free to use as well as the physical contactless card.

Of course, Apple has never agreed to such a thing and isn't about to start now.

patrick.barnes

We'll see. Apple agreed to very different terms in the U.K. compared to the US.

Majuki

Outside of the prime targets of hotels and airport duty free, I only saw it twice back in August, once at a merchant at Paddy's Markets (Haymarket) and at JB Hi-Fi. At JB Hi-Fi, the terminal was under our control the entire time. (I was guiding a friend through a purchase with his MasterCard.) At the merchant at Paddy's, the proprietor was holding the terminal and I had to prompt him to press cancel. (From my observations, the proprietor seemed to be somewhat DCC aware and inclined to opt in the unsuspecting.) The Marriott at Circular Quay had replaced its terminals, but the reception offered full disclosure and ability to select the billed currency.

I believe use of contactless payments generally will remove the chance of DCC occurring. Does anyone know if the Pays do not support DCC at all?

percysmith

http://forum.hongkongcard.com/forumSE/show/15295?page=4 #36

"Alsa still looks the same, but German PayPal states the HKD amount and no obvious way to change. I don't know whether clicking the amount works like Alsa clicking the exchange rate, but after I disabled DCC for my card permanently using the rate in post #1, I was charged in Euros."

rasheed

That is ridiculous that there is DCC at Marriott Sydney Harbour when you already pay an extra 2% just for using a credit card as payment. I strongly suggest going across the street to the ANZ bank and taking out the cash to make the payment (like I did). ANZ only charges 2 AUD as an ATM fee, and my bank reimburses that anyway. Even with having the MR Visa, I still was against paying the fee.

This is the merchant company that asked for AUD/USD choice for at least one of my transactions: https://www.tyro.com/

The terminal with the vertical chip insert is the Yomani box on this same page.
DCC is an option via Tyro as noted here: https://www.tyro.com/dynamic-currency-conversion-dcc/

They are not hiding the revenue enhancement fact with DCC.

Rasheed

Majuki

You're right on it not being worth it for the rewards even with a Marriott Visa (which I used for the two transactions). Even though in my case I opted out of DCC, they still hit me for 2% of the total amount for both transactions, A$72.02 in total.

I am very familiar with that ANZ branch, and it's usually my first stop after checking into the hotel after walking from Circular Quay station. I don't know which other hotels levy a credit card surcharge, but it seems like it's becoming more of a problem in Australia.

Imagine a worse case where a naive traveler was using a 3% FTF card, was ignorant of DCC (3.8% in this case), and paid the 2% surcharge... 8.8% stupid tax for using a credit card for the hotel bill.

I'm trying to think of a practical way to pay the hotel room next time. I'm about 50/50 in terms of my stays there on points versus paid, but I think in the future I'll exclusively stay on points or do as you did and pay down the room in cash. Even with the SPG AmEx at 6x, it's unlikely to be worth it.

percysmith

For me the math is worse (yes Majuki you don't need to point I have Aus savings and credit card accounts; I'm hypothesising the situation where the AUD is low and I do not wish to utilise those savings).

My wife can draw cash with Unionpay, which is 0.42% over the Visa rate
Add the $2 per $1,000 for 0.62% net cost

Alternatively I can card my HKD cards
Unionpay: 0.42% + 2% surcharge - ~1.3% in miles = 1.12% net cost
Visa: 1.85% FTF + 2% surcharge - ~2.07% in miles = 1.78% net cost

(I'm roughly earning 1.3 miles per $ on Unionpay foreign spending, 2.07 per $ on Visa foreign spending, and I'm using 1cpm for valuation)

KvR

I was asked but some years ago in a hotel with a similar terminal/PIN pad combination DCC was applied hidden behind the reception desk. Suddenly the lady did not speak English or German anymore.

jamar

If anyone's still curious about China, here's one more case I bumped into at a Mexican restaurant in Shanghai some time back:

Terminal doesn't obviously indicate a bank on the main screen, just the words "外卡支付". No apparent way to opt out in the beginning, and it does the checkbox thing (it also shows at the bottom that the bank doing the DCC-ing is called "Nanyue Bank" and indicates a mark-up of 3.8%). The cashier has to reconcile it afterwards, but the way to do so isn't immediately obvious; it's a separate process. You have to press 1 to get into the menu, find "DCC退出", then it asks for the trace number on the card slip. Then it runs the transaction again with only local currency displayed, and the slip shows the transaction type as "DCC VOID".