Yep, most AmEx products on offer are ~ 3% FTF. Centurion, Platinum, Delta (within the last 2 years), and SPG (within the last year) are 0% FTF. What I typically do is book the hotel and do the preauth with my Platinum card. I will then settle the bill with my affinity card (Citi Hilton Visa or Chase Marriott Visa). For smaller transactions, as I've said before, I just use cash or a contactless stored value card like Octopus or EasyCard.

It's also worth adding that the PRG (Gold) card is also 0% FTF (albeit no bonus categories at foreign merchants); I suspect that this card may be as popular as most of the other 0% FTF AmEx cards combined.

I'd say in that case, Amex would be the way to go. I'd be surprised if DCC ever was as low as 3%.

I was worried about the reported rampant DCC in Spain. To my surprise, NONE happened during our few days in Madrid last week. The hotels all billed in Euro - 1 Marriott, 2 AC Hotels, 1 Crowne Plaza. All restaurant meals as well as fast foods were in euro despite I was never shown the handhelds. Did not buy anything so no idea on that front.

The only annoying thing is one of the AC hotels authorized the card used for booking a day BEFORE arrival, on refundable booking, and at the wrong rate (the rate was reduced after a Marriott Look No Further guarantee was approved and correctly reflected on Marriott site.) It also tried to authorize an unknown amount on a point stay booking. But the card on file had expired as the booking was made last Dec and the card expired in Feb. At check in I was told the card was invalid and I just gave them the new card. Much later I Found an email that I must provide a new card immediately (a day before arrival, on a point stay) otherwise the reservation would be canceled. There is no telling how much the hotel tries to authorize. This is the first time on hundreds nights of hotel stay around the world that I encounter a hotel would authorize the card on file a day before guest check in, on refundable booking and on award nights. Crowne Plaza MAD airport did put 10 euro test charge on the card on the day of arrival at around noon time per the Chase email alert on International authorization, but seemed to automatically reverse the charge once the card was proven being "good card" as I saw both the billing and "return" on the Chase IHG card online.

I have started to see this at Hiltons in NYC in the past year or so. When I thought about it a bit, it makes total sense. Whether it be a cancelable post-paid reservation, or an award reservation, the credit card is on file as a guarantee to pay the no-show penalty should you no show. Without a valid credit card on file to which the penalty can be charged, the reservation is not valid. I would imagine that properties that historically had too many "credit card guaranteed" reservations that they were unable to collect the no-show penalty from would be the ones to implement such a policy.

I agree the test is probably necessary to make sure the card remains in good standing for the guarantee - hence the Crowne Plaza put a 10 euro test around noon time at arrival date. However authorize the FULL rate a day BEFORE arrival date in my opinion the hotel has gone too far. On top of that at check out they still require the physical card to rerun the actual charge when could not use the pre-authorized code to do the billing. This AC Hotel (Carlton) has a screwy system - when I showed the front desk clerk the reservation print out, he said, "Is it all you can show for your reservation? You dont have any voucher?" Would he be able to see how the reservation is made? (directly on Marriott site with fully refundable rate later adjusted lower due to LNF claim but it was still a fully refundable booking pay at check out.) He then needed to make a copy of my print out of the reservation. What if the guest only has the electronic version saved on a device? The AC Atocha 2 blocks away has zero question on the reservation and never pre-authorizes the SAME credit card.

That's good to know -- thanks for letting us know. I didn't have any DCC problems in Madrid, either: department store machines offered a choice, everyone else just charged EUR. But that was in 2014 so I had been concerned by some of the reports here.

Got back from Malta last week. As far as I can see, there aren't any reports from this country. (For those who have never heard of Malta, it is a beautiful island nation located between Italy and Libya. Ninth smallest country in the world, member of the EU and uses the Euro as a currency. Officially bi-lingual Maltese and English, many Italian speakers and plenty of ex-pats from around Europe.)

Most retailers had two card terminals (even at each supermarket checkout). One from Bank of Valletta (BOV) and one from Global Payments (HSBC). For local debit cards without Visa/Mastercard, they selected the machine based on the card presented. For foreign cards, it seemed to be a mix as to which machine was used. Even visiting the same restaurant on two occassions, I ended up with one BOV receipt and one HSBC receipt.

In terms of DCC, only the HSBC machines offered it. I was offered DCC four times and all the staff were clear and knowledgable about the "service". All offered a choice of Sterling or Euro before entering the PIN. In one store, the cashier even asked about my choice of currency just on sight of my Halifax card - her response was "good choice" when I opted for Euros! Opting out was easy: green to select DCC or red to opt out.

I found this article in a local newspaper to be quite interesting, where DCC is sold as being very beneficial and free of charge to customers: http://www.independent.com.mt/articl...lux-6736136636

What a load of crap.

One of the standout features of our Dynamic Currency Conversion service is that there are no undisclosed fees, so customers will know exactly what they are paying at the point of sale.

Yea, the fee for DCC is "not undisclosed" only if you know that day's actual forex rate between the two currencies, and convert the native amount of the transaction into the other currency yourself and compare that with the DCC offer.

In the United States, as dcc developed first in Ireland and metastasized throughout the torist world, some of the near criminal large banks saw one of their most lucrative fees, the foreign currency exchange fee begin to become less. So their ressponse was to change the fee to a foreign transaction fee. With many of these near criminal banks (Bank of America, citibank, JP Morgan Chase are prime examples), foreign transactions are nailed witn a 3% fee so being dcc'd does not prefvent the imposition of this fee in the slightest.

[QUOTE=BruceyBonus;26538678]

In terms of DCC, only the HSBC machines offered it. I was offered DCC four times and all the staff were clear and knowledgable about the "service". All offered a choice of Sterling or Euro before entering the PIN. In one store, the cashier even asked about my choice of currency just on sight of my Halifax card - her response was "good choice" when I opted for Euros! Opting out was easy: green to select DCC or red to opt out./QUOTE]

Usually the "good choice" is the opposite. :)

Also, the problem with green/red is that a person who is unaware of DCC might think that red will cancel the transaction. The whole thing is setup for you to take the bait, against Visa/MC policy.

I'm just curious about the editorial policy of that newspaper. Next time I have to run some propaganda piece for Our Dear Leader or need some supposedly disinterested English-language mouthpiece to extol the virtues of Chinese rule over Tibet I know who to call. Probably cheaper than hiring black hats to hack BBC.

LOL!

Exactly.

I was recently in Hong Kong for a holiday and used my Visa for 9 transactions (most of them card-present ones) and saw that 8 transactions that has posted are in HKD.

At one of the merchants (Admiralty MTR to purchase Disneyland and Oceanpark tickets), I had a bit of a scare when the sales clerk passed me a slip to indicate HKD/SGD and I ticked HKD. While the final slip given to me indicated I was charged in HKD, it was an offline transaction, and I received a sms notification from my bank that I was charged in SGD (about SGD2 more after accounting for the foreign transaction fee on my card). Subsequently I was relieved that the charge posted in HKD.

At another restaurant in IFC, my friend was presented with the credit card machine, and asked to press the green button to be charged in SGD and red for HKD. Very counter-intuitive, but at least the restaurant and machines were DCC-compliant. For the other transactions, the sales clerks generally charged HKD without asking.