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.