Originally Posted by
BadgerBoi
Thank you! Not long ago a friend of mine was telling me how wonderful it was that BHV in Paris (owned by Galeries Lafayette iirc) could charge her in Australian dollars, therefore saving her oodles of money. Hard as I tried I could not convince her to select euros next time she was faced with DCC. I'm going to commit your post to memory as it explains beautifully and clearly what I was trying to tell her.
I'm glad it can provide some talking points for you to try to convince your friend. If you read back a couple of posts, you will find similar stories where a number of us have attempted to convince friends, family and traveling companions to avoid DCC and always request local currency.
I don't know if Australian card issuers use currency conversion fees or foreign transaction fees. In the US, pretty much all issuers now use foreign transaction fees for cards that have them, so you'll get hit with the FTF even if you choose DCC.
A quick way to end any argument with DCC is ask the person why would the merchant be providing such a service if there was no economic benefit to the merchant? There's good money to be made in currency conversion, and you needn't look further than any of the currency exchange booths at an international airport. The merchant provides DCC as a value-added service, and the customer pays a premium for using that service.