Originally Posted by
tauphi
So it needs to be processed as a MasterCard. In Hong Kong, where a contactless POS accepts both MasterCard and UnionPay, you often need to tell the merchant before the transaction which card you're trying to use or it may fail as the two types of cards are incompatible.
You would presume that the same applies in China and the default is probably UnionPay. Did you specifically tell them that you wanted to use MasterCard? I'd be surprised if they were able to take a normal contactless MasterCard but not an Apple Pay one.
No, I didn't tell them it was a MasterCard. I just wanted to get the transaction done after 5 failed attempts (including having to disable the Shanghai transport card, because that pops up first, even when I use Apple Pay in the US).