Is HK moving in the direction of FTFs and away from currency exchange fees?

Drifting towards 0.8% for HKD FTF in addition to 1.95% non-HKD fee long established. We have to be extremely careful about which cards are used online.

Hi all,

Anybody knows how to disable the DCC-like option in Paypal? I'm trying to pay in the local currency. I remember there is an option in the paypal menu but I can't find it anymore.

Okay found it.

Yep. It's tricky.

They have gone one step beyond - I ordered something through ebay, then they guide me to paypal payment. So I entered all the information and the 'other conversion' option screen never pops up!

So I had to cancel the transaction and then pay without sign into paypal.

The worst is, I can't even use my AMEX to pay for that transaction!

Citi plays a lot with this DCC Crap.

If you do international wires a pop up on your screen explaing your wire will be converted to HKD (but it won't say under their conversion rates nor do they tell you their conversion rate) Press OK to continue in HKD or press cancel to continue in USD.

Many people don't even read the paragraph they put there and hit YES. As one would assume cancel would mean "I don't want to continue with my wire".

I've been seeing a lot of new FD terminals lately (mostly FD130s), which makes me wonder again about DCC in the US. Perhaps not many merchants will opt-in but it may be difficult for customers to opt-out before the fact based on the terminal placements that I've seen. It might be because I use chip and signature cards most of the time but the merchant seems to just push Yes to all the prompts without really looking unless it asks for a PIN.

Which is a reason for chip and PIN - a very good reason for it. You can usually see the amount and avoid entering your PIN.

It's funny I don't have a card to try out DCC in the US...

My cards are either issued in US, or issued in China with the dual-currency being USD...

One possible option we considered over in the EMV thread is to get a Travelex prepaid card. The minimum loads, exchange rates and fees are horrible though so unless you really wanted to know about DCC in the US I'd find some other solution. (Also there's no guarantee that POSes here won't skip DCC altogether because they think it's a USD card even with other currencies on it.)

Same here for me in HK

That's just volunteering for DCC by Travelex isn't it?

Commbank also has a Traveller's Card in Aus that is similarly horrendous.

Yes, and in the case of DCC you'd get hit from both ends if using a Travelex card.

I still maintain in the US that DCC cases are likely few and far between and easily avoidable when encountered, but I have no way of testing this short of having my wife use her Bank of Taiwan Visa debit card. However, while she has helped me completely dodge DCC successfully in Taiwan, she's not that interested in trying out her card just for the sake of trying it out. She let me make one small purchase at the Books Kinokuniya, which didn't have DCC. On an unrelated note, I was impressed with BoT's currency exchange fee on the posted transaction amount.

The reason I say that DCC cases are easily avoided is that at almost all big box retailers there is an electronic signature pad facing the customer. DCC, if offered, would likely appear as a choice on this signature pad. I imagine it would be just like the DFS setup we've seen at HKIA, Guam, and SFO. I could see two places where it could be problematic. The first is at hotels because many use an easy checkout system where the night clerk will slip the bill under your room door in the early hours on the day of your departure. However, I think a visit to the front desk would be able to rectify any DCC attempts. The second is at restaurants. I would think in this case that bringing over the manager or asking the waitstaff to void the transaction and rerun it opting out of DCC would do the trick. The tipping culture in the US would motivate the restaurant staff to want to do the right thing.

Above all else, I think the customer service oriented training at most establishments would prevail, allowing for a successful opt out of DCC. I've read reports here where some establishments overseas seem to know exactly what they're doing with respect to DCC and attempt to swindle the customer with lines of, "We'll see what happens..." or "There's no option to disable it if you use a foreign card." DCC here would most likely be met with looks of confusion and curiosity. For instance, I doubt that the waitstaff at the Outback Steakhouse in Merrillville, IN have ever seen a non-USD denominated credit card.

I'm more worried about the smaller places that don't have separate PIN pads than anything else. And while it's probably fairly straightforward to have it rerun in USD it's better not to have to ask in the first place. Of course, I'm not sure how many of these smaller places will actually adopt DCC really.

My sister-in-law will be visiting, and we can try using her card at the Popeyes with EMV enabled on the FD terminal and see what happens. While I agree that it's better to avoid having to ask in the first place or having to void a transaction, I'm still wondering how many cases of DCC there actually are in the US. We can try Macy's, Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's, and a few other big box retailers over the next few weeks, and I can report back.