Originally Posted by
mlin32
Most major chain hotels, even the chinese ones like Atour, accept foreign bank cards (MC/Visa are processed through Unionpay networks).
That said,
in smaller towns and cities, they might have to dust off the card machine 
. I had one case where they tried but after 3 attempts I just said screw it and paid by Weixin and swallowed the processing fee. But maybe because I am used to FX related fees anyway since in Europe, our bank cards are less generous with perks and charge more fees in general.
I was tempted to comment along the same lines in my previous post. If you're in a small city that doesn't see much foreign credit card usage, even if the establishment can process foreign cards, the path of least resistance is to suck it up and use wx/ap (i.e. do you honestly want to spend an extra 10 minutes confusing the staff on using their old POS machine just to save Y30?).
ETA: I object to DCC out or principle, but Alipay only eating fx conversion costs up to 200 doesn't fall into the same "outright stealing" category.