Had a little DCCish incident at Al Molo Italian Restaurant at Harbour City today.

Before, the DCC in HK I've met are either that you are asked for currency selection before the first slip is printed (Tom Lee), or once the first slip is printed you are asked right away automatically on the terminal (lots of places like Tsui Hwa and MTR).

At Al Molo, since it's a HK$2000 bill and it's a upscale restaurant, I paid very close attention on the terminal. After information transmission (showing TX and RX on the screen), everything ceased on the terminal, and the currency selection slip is printed.

I don't have a service that I can simply upload photos, so I'll copy the text on the slip here:

Trans: Sale
Batch No: XXXXXX Ref: XXXXXX
RRN: XXXXXXXXX
AID: XXXXXXXXX
APP Code: XXXXXXXXX

FX Rate*: USD/HKD 0.1343638
Mark[x] Transation Currency
[ ] HKD 2095.00 [ ] USD 281.49

This service is offered by merchant's service provider. I have a choice of currencies including HKD. *Incl. four pt. two percent over wholesale rate.

I protested to the staff, but the staff said once I tick the box, I'll get HKD. I didn't believe him, and another staff came and keyed the transaction info into the terminal. After some keying, the terminal printed out the currency confirmation slip, showing "HKD 2095" only, and "Trans: Offline-Opt/Out".

The pending amount is identical to the DCC amount in USD.

This incident reminds me the Greyhound Cafe thing (interestingly, there is a Greyhound, not the IFC one, Cafe right in front of the Al Molo). The matter is someone has to perform a new task on the terminal, and key in the transaction details, just to be able to get back to the transaction and select the currency. I guess if the cashier forgets to do that, or doesn't know how to perform the "opt/out", the cardholder would be in trouble.

My question is: is Greyhound Cafe's terminal like this, that a new "opt/out" task has to be performed? What I saw today really resembles what you guys have described regarding Greyhound Cafe's terminal, that after swiping, nothing about DCC happens, but DCC's already happened.