Originally Posted by
raikje
IC BUD
Bad
- Dynamic Currency Conversion
The hotel charged the advance payment to my card in GBP without my permission, despite quoting in EUR. As I paid using a card with no foreign exchange fees, I'm a bit annoyed, especially since the advance purchase meant they charged me the 3% conversion fee without notice (at least I could have contested it at checkout before payment if I was on a flexible rate)
Please make a fuss about this. DCC without your explicit agreement is completely against the merchant agreement with the CC company. It works in the interests of the bank and the hotel, and against those of the card-holder. The potential penalty is exacerbated if you use one of the credit cards that puts no load or fee on European currency conversion.
If you scale up the few percentage points DCC penalty paid by the number of rooms and nights per year, you get a picture how much such a simple little racket is worth.