atlflygirl

I just received a Unionpay Ecard (ecardinc) for which I applied so I hard a card to use in parts of Asia that may not accept Visa. However, the application process was incredibly slow and cumbersome. It took me almost three months to receive a card from Global Bank and another week to wait out their process of transferring funds from my bank. So finally, after a three-month wait from the time of application, I had a card I could use. Not so fast. Come to find out, it's hard to use at many places in the US, particularly restaurants, as in some the customer-facing terminal will recognize the card but the merchant-facing register will not receive the credit card approval code in order to print out a receipt. In others, the chip isn't recognized at all, and you have to swipe. Or you use it at CVS, and it will ask you whether to run it as Unioncard Debit or General US Debit and neither works. The main places where the card does seem to work seamlessly are in Starbucks and at my grocery store, Publix, both of whom may have a direct link to Unionpay. Does anyone know of any tricks to getting the card to work more easily? How well does the card work in Asia? I'm a little worried that if I take the card to Asia with me that it won't work as intended, and I may need to put a fair amount on the card.

Firemansam

Never used that card, but also have never ever had a problem using VISA in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Singapore, Malaysia.

atlflygirl

I’m talking more about China and Russia.

plunet

What you might be facing is that due to the difficulty for mainland Chinese tourists to travel at the moment, although Unionpay should be accepted at some retailers in the US, due to the lack of use things have broken for some retailers? If you really want to test it in the US I would suggest going to a significant Chinatown area and try some transactions there.

I have seen similar issues in the UK using WeChat pay, due to very few Chinese tourists the retailers have ceased their agreements with WeChat and Alipay due to lack of use, or its otherwise broken.

As for spending in Russia, assuming you have to travel there, I would be trying to find some expat forums and asking on there as the western sanctions are no doubt making it very difficult to use western based financial systems. Whether UnionPay issued by a non-Chinese bank would work is probably beyond the experience of anyone here.

Gerbs

Another possibility is to visit the nearest major outlet mall, as these are very popular with international tourists and thus are likely to have substantial experience with Unionpay.