The primary issue is that most places don’t give you the reader, the staff keep hold of it while you tap your card from the back. It’s a bit sad that the ease of contactless makes DCC easier. If anything, solutions like Apple Pay should give users more control via the UI of their phones, not less.

As such, with contactless you often can’t see the prompts on the screen or even if you can see it they quickly take it away once they hear the beep. I’ve had to literally take the reader from staff just to ensure there is no DCC. And sometimes feel like a jerk when the prompt doesn’t appear.

Most places in Portugal use the handheld readers so it doesn’t matter whether it’s a sit down or casual cafe.

One particularly shocking experience was in Graça where the staff said they had a rule requiring USD and then spat out a receipt that claimed we had been given a choice. I wasn’t the one paying and didn’t catch it until afterwards.