Originally Posted by
returnoftheyeti
I am sure there was a way to bypass this, but this was the first American credit card they had seen in 20 years of business. I have no Japanese at all, and they were nice and all. The food and service was fantastic.
Moral of the story that I learned in Tokyo is carry piles of cash. Trying to explain the concept of DCC via Google translate is not what I consider a good time.
Japan is very good with American Express too. Earlier this month the missus tried to pay for a big omakase we just had. The restaurant chef-owner thought he could take V/M, but couldn't make the missus's card work. He asked me whether I had AE or JCB, which he had better experience taking. My AE worked, but the reason my missus's card was with her bank (stop transactions after 10 overseas transaction/day), not the restaurant.