I think we tried 3 times and even got the manager involved. "Function 24" was certainly news to me, but the fact that it exists (in theory) suggest to me that opting out might have been possible in the end. That having been said, my principle objection to DCC is generally not worth 30 minutes of my time for a $50 discrepancy, let alone a $4 hit.

I book 30+ nights a year in Indonesia. I'm very aware of what the daily exchange rate is. The hotel sets the USD>IDR exchange rate, and over the last few years it's averaged at least 3% over the normal exchange rate.

At least for Hyatts, I've always been able to pay the bills in USD, without having to convert to rupiah. This has saved me quite a bit.

Sweetheat Restaurant doesn't. Well they're noticeably downmarket from Jade Garden and Outback...they don't take AE whilst Jade Garden/Outback would.


Yes.
But like Dongguan Golf Club (which also has that), a return to base is needed and a carbon slip is printed (without stopping for currency selection).

Seen that in Thailand, Taiwan
But not in HK - "PLS SELECT AMOUNT TO PAY HKD AMOUNT [USD/AUD] AMOUNT" on carbon paper is the one I've seen in HK with visitors.

moondog's one didn't.
But then again I suspect they imported the 查询-less Guangdong version firmware.

But would chain hotels like Angsana and Westin take them? I don't normally carry a stack of greenbacks with me but if they take them I'll bring them.

You mean the hotel rate is based on USD, and is converted back to IDR?

I thought if a hotel is based in Indonesia, the hotel rate should be based on IDR first, then they quote the IDR price in USD for your convenience. Am I wrong on this?

I just pulled out my bill from St.Regis Nusa Dua. The room charge is 5,694,975.00 IDR, and in another column 486.75 USD. I really didn't pay attention to the USD amount, because I know I would settle the bill in IDR anyway, and my card doesn't charge foreign transaction fee. Did I misunderstand something here?

No but you were probably quoted USD486.75 when you booked the hotel (it's now quoting me USD500 now for 4-6 Apr, without ability to convert the currency back to IDR).

I wouldn't bring cash for a hotel stay, I thought you mean grab a bite or something, haha...

I did see POS machines printing out secondary slips to confirm your currency choice. The place is the Van Der Cleef store in Pacific Place in Admiralty.

Yes, I see most of the machines are machines where you need to enter "HKD" on the keypad and put the remote pad back to the base. Theoretically you have 100% control over DCC on this type of machines, right? Am I missing something?

Dude, my bad. The prices from SPG, IC, and Marriott for Bali hotels are indeed priced in USD. So when paying the actual price in IDR, we pay more.

How do you settle your bill in USD by CC? I think the law prohibits that.

For Laguna Nusa Dua, the price is 1,810,699 IDR (159.34 USD according to Visa), and 158 USD. SPG.com can let you choose the currency.

How can we avoid this when using these big chains? looks like their price is based on USD, just like Lotte Duty Free, where if you pay with KRW, you pay more.

For my St. Regis stay, the quoted price is 486.75 USD, the charged price is 5694975 IDR.

According to Visa:

"The rate shown applies to transactions processed by Visa Europe on 27 November 2013 with a currency conversion fee of 0.00%.

5,694,975.00 INDONESIAN RUPIAH = 489.77 UNITED STATES DOLLAR."

Only 0.7%, not bad, I was quite lucky, right?

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Lotte duty free is usd denominated. It's as if they are a us shop. Any other currency card is foreign

If we mentally add 4% to all usd prices we see, we are fine.

Actually from a payment perspective using visa in china can be thought of the same way. But the big objection I have is I get denied all my foreign spending miles bonuses - sometimes approaching 8 mile/US$ - now we have to care about that?

I noticed a funny thing in Hong Kong. I primarily used my CSP, but the folks I were with used other cards, including other Chase-issued cards. At the Ritz-Carlton, for example, my receipt didn't offer a DCC, but everyone else's did. I wonder if there's some magic bits that can be set on the card to keep that from happening.

Last night I was at Big Bamboo in Jing'an and the duty manage came over to me with a smile on his face to tell me that, several months ago, he sent my advice about DCC being rude up the food chain and just last week the owner of the company agreed to completely disable this feature on the POS machines in all of their restaurants.

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Billatq: nope. There's definitely no issuer-controlled option to opt out of DCC for visa and MC - otherwise you have all issuers setting no DCC by default which defeats visa and mc's reasons (anti-trust or profit) to set up DCC.

More likely the cashier opted DCC out for you, either due to something you said or input error. But did not do so for your friends.

That's cool! I will be in Shanghai tomorrow, wanna check this Big Bamboo out.

Which bank do they use as their acquirer bank?

Which bank issues their POS machines?

I had a problem with this recently at the Hotel Novotel Paris Gare Montparnasse. They swiped my Visa card and immediately a CC signature slip printed out with the amount in USD & fine print at the bottom saying I've been offered a choice of currencies & agree to their exchange rate + 3%. I told the hotel clerk to cancel the charge and start again and only charge in Euros. She said it automatically came up in USD and there was no option to decline. She refunded the amount in Euros, but didn't refund the 3% exchange rate upcharge, so my CC statement showed a total refund of a lesser amount. When she manually keyed in my CC number instead of swiping it (on the second attempt) the signature slip came out in Euros. So it seems that swiping vs keying in the number can make a difference in regards to being charged a DCC or not (at least at Novotel branded hotels).