Majuki

That's 6% over the current Visa or MC rate!

Mrs. Majuki and I are touring around. I met up with percysmith Tuesday evening in Hong Kong. The only DCC offer I saw was at a Lush cosmetics shop. Mrs. Majuki made her usual stop at Francfranc, which does have DCC, but Google Pay was able to avoid the DCC offer completely. I used AmEx for my hotel stay, so there were no other DCC offers that I saw. At Lush, the cashier seemed pleased when I was quick to choose HKD. "Ah, good.."

We're now in the Maldives, but since all of the hotels use USD as the transaction currency there are no DCC offers either. I wanted to pay by credit card at the National Museum gift shop, but the cashier said that foreign transactions are subject to a $5 surcharge. (Perhaps I misunderstood.) Seeing as I was only purchasing a $4 refrigerator magnet, it made no sense to do a card transaction, but I would have liked to have seen whether or not the card transaction was a native USD transaction or processed in MVR. I went to the new Burger King by the ferry terminal in Malé for lunch, but I only had USD on me. They gladly accepted USD and gave change in MVR. The exchange rate used was the real exchange rate, so I was surprised there was no markup. My only other experience has been places like Niagara Falls or Vancouver where places will accept USD but at unfavorable exchange rates.