Originally Posted by SPN Lifer
Apparently Starwood has not yet implemented its consumer-friendly policy in Asia. I was at the Westin Philippine Plaza in June, and got unwittingly suckered into paying a dollar-based bill, with no option to pay in Pesos.
Now I'll know better.
As far as I can tell *ALL* VISA transactions in Spain are suffering DCC, with a 3% 'mark-up' above the exchange rate supplied by VISA. The print out explicitly says 'no commission' and contains a whole statement to the effect that the card holder has been offered a choice of currencies. But it isn't true. I speak Spanish and asked many times for the charge to be processed in euros, but the Spanish merchants simply have no idea of what is going on. MC and AMEX were not yet into this trick, at least a few months ago. All ATM transactions in Spain now are also in the currency of the card, with a very unfavorable exchange rate. When the euro was $1.22, Spanish ATMs were charging $1.27.