sosafan

I just went to make a dummy booking in South Africa next week, and it came up in dollars, but if I clicked on "currency" I could change to zar. (I'm just guessing but) that probably doesn't affect how they will bill you. But I would want a confirmation printed out with the cost in zar so I know in advance. And if the number was different when they close out the rental, I could challenge it.

I was last in RSA a while ago, but I didn't have any DCC problems there. I have had problems in Ireland, UK, India and Spain. Just don't sign any credit card charge in your home currency.

Clipper801

I have completely forgotten about this dynamic foreign conversion nonsense! I have been renting from Hertz in recent years and completely stopped during the pandemic until lately. One of my credit cards entitled me to the AVIS President's Club and they were running a Spring pre-paid 30% discount promotion in Canada. So I booked and prepaid a car with Avis in the U.S. I noticed the difference in rates between paying in US$ vs. C$, so I elected to prepay in US$. Everything was fine. I was always an Avis Preferred and now I supposed to have a higher status. There wasn't really much difference at car pick up other than I was offered an "upgrade" from an intermediate to full size car. It's supposed to be a "2 car" upgrade. Anyway, the car has nearly 46,000 miles on it.
I had some toll charges. On return, I was told that those charges would be charged to the credit card. I said fine. I was in a hurry with a flight to catch. Ding! Avis has forced the the dynamic currency conversion on my C$ credit card without reminding or asking me whether or not to opt out. Lucky I prepaid, the toll charges were relatively small amount.

I checked my profile and I could find no setting to this effect. Does anyone know of a workaround to avoid the DCC?

nacho

Not sure about US preferred, but you have that in Europe's preferred profile. You need to uncheck a box saying something like I would like to be charge in my card's currency.

The other way to workaround is to use an AMEX, a third option is to check your bill, and if it looks wrong, go to the preferred office physically to settle the bill (I was able to do that at IAH - using a visa that has less forex fee than my AMEX). It was billed in USD.

Clipper801

Unfortunately this option is unavailable to North American (at least Canadian) based Preferred members. I suppose that I must go to the Preferred counter to ask for this option be removed each and every time when I pick up the car. Btw any one experience any difference in treatment as a Preferred vs. Preferred Plus vs. Preferred President's Club? I was "upgraded" from an intermediate to a full size and the car that I was provided had nearly 46,000 miles on it.

nacho

Use an AMEX if you have one - and you can always go to the preferred booth after you returned your car.

I'm a president club member and I got zero upgrade during my past rentals except in YYC and IAH. At YVR I was given a car that the back windows couldn't open and there was literally no thread on all the tyres (didn't realize until I drove it to the US). Last car I got was no upgrade but fairly new (didn't feel like a 1600 miles car). It was a Kia Forte and I took it because of its impressive trunk space.

Clipper801

With Dynamic Currency Conversion, Avis already converted the foreign amount to the currency of your credit card that one is using to pay for the rental. The charge from Avis is actually in the currency of the credit card. For example, if one rents in the US using a C$ credit card issued in Canada, Avis will convert the US$ charges to C$ and then charges it to the C$ credit card in C$, not US$. So it does not really matter which card one uses unless one has a credit card in the local currency of the renting country. DCC charges a huge premium on the foreign exchange and presumably, that excess profits go to Avis. It does not affect local American rentals using American $ credit cards. It would affect all foreign renters who do not have a US$ credit card and Avis does not appear to want to make it easy to opt-out of the DCC. I believe that this is Avis general practice system wide.

nacho

It used to be a problem in Europe. I was dinged a few times by Avis, their DCC rate is 4% vs 1.75 to 2% from my card issuers.

I did rent with them quite a few times after that and every single time it was billed in USD. Once I actually went to the counter and paid it in full and the machine said USD and I just double checked my statement, it was in USD. My card is in DKK and my AMEX is in SEK. It seems that AMEX makes DCC impossible but not other credit cards.

I even brought the issue up to Visa and they don't give a damn, even though they are the one who suffers from it.

I totally agree that forced DCC is a shady practice and maybe you can contact their customer service to see if they can change that. Otherwise, a case to BBB might help.

Amazon has it too but their rate is actually as least as good as my card rate, and I'll pick my card currency because USD seems to only going up.