I'm not worried in Hong Kong. As I said, I never saw DCC there, but perhaps that was 3 years ago and the problem has gotten worse. Over the week in Macau/HK back in July 2011 the only place that charged DCC was the Venetian Macau for my hotel stay. Even the ferry tickets from the travel desk at the Venetian were charged correctly in Patacas. So was the AJ Hackett Bungy Jump. :D

My concern with DCC has always been Mainland China.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hong-...nversions.html by BoCHK (2011)
Fortress HK by DBS HK (2013)
DCCing a FT ambassador by HSBC/Global Payments (2013)

Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC) - Master Thread
 

Bosnia turned out to be easy. Legally businesses and ATMs can only charge for items in local currency. Not a single DCC here.

Same as Indonesia

The same for Indonesia.

Thai has DCC, but can be turned off. In a not so safe country, it is wise not to use CC that frequently. So in Thai I just use cash for eat out, and use CC for hotels.

Yes, but hotels can quote prices in USD and then give you a crappy exchange rate to IDR. 3-5% is what I usually see.

Are these DCC:

1) controllable, that you get to choose the currency?
2) on by default, by it can be turned off on your request, like China?
3) unbeatable?

However, you can let the websites of hotels do a quote in USD. Moreover, currency fluctuation is really big in IDR. That can account for some of the difference you saw.

Everything is settled in IDR, so sticking to that instead of USD is a wise choice.

As the "ambassador" in question with respect to Percy's third mentioned post, I can assure you that there was no easy work around. In fact, he ended up settling the bill with a local credit card.

Well we didn't try entering the amount, hitting enter followed by cancel.

I take what zyxlsy says on face value, however, I don't see why anyone else (such as HSBC) has to offer such an opt-out feature if they can get away with it (no policing by Visa/local monetary authorities).

But, that's what I think is good about using CC in HK. The ones I ran into all have the control of DCC, and they always ask you. To me that's like 100% for the whole HK. I've never failed on choosing HKD so far...

If there are actually POS machines like the ones in China, then I would have to abandon the "perfect" sign I give to HK in my mind and be vigilant...

You have a better experience in HK than moondog then.
Coyote Bar & Grill manager claimed there's no method to switch off DCC. Even though there's a note on the counter saying there should be a certain "Function 24" to do it.

I think we ran the transaction at least twice (didn't we, moondog?). There's no obvious "汇率查询" phase where we can hit the cancel button/tear out the phone line. Caveat emptor in HK.

Also see the Fortress post, where lingua101 got DCCed by Fortress Electronics on his SGD card despite selecting HKD on a carbon slip.

I wonder can we settle in USD banknotes (literally greenbacks) in Bintan or Bali?

Unlike DCC, I'm not so mad about the fake USD translation. There's usually the rate at the reception and I translate everything back to IDR on my iPhone <-- *before* deciding how much to splurge.

hmmm, maybe I did have some good experience.

The restaurants I can remember using USD card without DCC problems are:

Outback in Causeway Bay
Jade Garden in Kim Sham Tsui
... (cant remember all, there are about 50)

The POS machines in HK usually have a remote keypad with card reader at the top, right? There are two buttons right below the screen, and when using oversea cards, one button is for HKD, the other for home currency, right? When prompting the selections, the screen also shows the rate, right?

Some of the machines I can remember do print one slip first, and then you choose the currency, and the machine prints out another, currency confirmation page.

If something shows like "汇率查询", that looks so much like Mainland China's DCC system, where you need to hit cancel... Maybe some merchants are using Mainland China POS machines illegally in HK to save swipe fees?

I think in every country you can settle cash transactions with greenbacks. Cash is hard to regulate, ha...

Indonesia doesn't allow USD CC transactions (good thing to me), but hotels tend to show the price in USD to make it readable (I check the balance of my debit card in Bali and print it out, to show others that I am a billionaire, in IDR of course). My personally experience in Bali is that the rate of USD to IDR fluctuates so badly, so it is possible that when the transaction actually happens, you pay more USD for the same IDR (mine was like 1% higher?). I don't think it is the hotels deliberate faults, maybe we all should just remember the actual price in IDR to avoid confusion.