Originally Posted by
zyxlsy
My experience in London and Paris is really good. Only did I encounter DCC at Fortrum and Mason, and I was offered a choice on the keypad with clear instructions.
Don't worry about Japan. As percysmith said, you do need to go VERY out of the way to find a DCC there. Japan is not famous for this kind of nefarious business practices at all. I've spent half a month in Kansai area last month living mostly on credit cards and encountered none DCC.
Only one place hit me with DCC in London, the Heathrow Airport Marriott. This time I'm prepared for it. I will watch any forms like a hawk before I sign, deface anything about the exchange rate, and ultimately pursue a chargeback if required.
Originally Posted by
zyxlsy
Regarding the Greyhound Café thing, I do believe that machine needs post-transaction inputs like those Global Payment machines do. The owner however doesn't know how to do that, or the business providing the machine to that owner doesn't want the owner to know how to do. Kind of hard for me to believe there is a hard-wired-to-the-bone DCC-forcing machine in HK, not China. I'll say 99% of the chance the DCC-disabling feature is hidden somewhere in that machine, very deeply hidden!
The posts about Greyhound Cafe are
here and
here. There was an Opt setting, which might have been the key, but there was no corresponding button. We seemed to have a helpful manager, and there was no language barrier. Pushing cancel during the ENQUIRY stage had no effect.
I guess I'm still in trouble in Mainland China since I can only speak a few phrases of Mandarin. I might as well brush up on my banking/DCC terms as well. In contrast, Taiwan is well behaved when it comes to DCC, so I've never had to worry.