Came back from a long trip including London, Croatia, Sydney and Hong Kong.

No DCC attempt at all in London, Croatia and Sydney, on spends made at shops, restaurants and grocery stores. All were billed in local currency without me to choose anything. At Hong Kong one local hotel attempted multiple times to DCC (making authorization when booking online, and again at check in despite I told them to bill it in HKD). It is Hang Seng machine. In the morning of check out day I saw it was still a DCCed amount showing on Chase online, so I went down to front desk and made the guy to retrieve the correct HKD billing slip given he insisted since I already circled the HKD, it should be billed in HKD but the bank information shown otherwise. I told him if he did not track it down from the accounting dept and the amount was DCCed amount I would surely dispute it. At check out, he did manage to produce a slip showing HKD was billed. A couple hours later I saw the actual billing showed up on Chase site as the correct HKD converted.
On Hang Seng's slip it actually tells you the conversion would add 2 different % padding to the amount, I forgot the description though. I dont know how this is done as I am asked to sign on the slip that had the language with both HKD and USD both showing. Then the front desk circled HKD.
2 other local hotels did not attempt to DCC despite they too made authorization and billing (one was prepaid rate). And they too, used Hang Seng as their processors. Therefore I believe the merchants have option even on the authorizations to DCC or not to DCC.
All Hong Kong eateries, shops and supermarkets do not ever attempt to DCC. All are correctly billed in HKD.

Preauths are almost always the DCC amount even if the billing is correct. The only way to prevent the DCC amount on a preauth and put your mind at ease completely is to making the booking with an AmEx and switch the card at checkout. (I do this at hotels with bad behavior.) The same goes for some, but not all, purchases with DCC. For instance, the DFS machines will hold the non-DCC amount if you opt out, but others such as Francfranc or Disneyland will hold the DCC amount and post the correct amount.

In Hong Kong you're almost always protected for two reasons: 1) The currency selection typically comes on carbon copy paper of which you receive one copy and 2) merchants can typically reprint a courtesy copy of the receipt showing the final, correct amount.

I beg to differ. Just because you don't personally see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I'm actually surprised since Hong Kong is one of the locations with almost ubiquitous DCC deployment. While most honor DCC choices, some, such as Greyhound Cafe (or at least as of late 2014) did not.

We are in 2016 mid year. Cannot use 2014 data point which is over 2 years and might very well be outdated. No idea what Greyhound Cafe is. We mainly ate at Chinese restaurants.

I did not say Hong Kong merchants do not DCC. I just said that I had not encounter any, not even an option to choose - they all came out to HKD on the slip I signed. In fact when I mentioned to restaurants to bill in HKD, universally they all said they could only bill in HKD. Never need to choose anything on the POS. Brother said eateries normally did not DCC, hotels may be different. That matched with own experiences.

I don't think either of us can produce a statistically representative sample but I've seen DCC in eateries for my time.

Besides Greyhound, Lamma Rainbow had it too. OK you may say that's touristy, but then why did Sweetheart Restaurant also have it?!

BTW I'm assuming once installed, merchants don't badger their acquirers to take it away.

In fact, some locations have seen the DCC ripoff increase, such as the SkyCity Marriott between 2015 and 2016. I have more recent examples (from this year), but I don't post since nothing had changed in the 2 years since the original post.

I can assure the readers of this thread DCC is alive and well in Hong Kong in 2016 for restaurants, shops, and hotels. I can't comment on changes that might have taken place at Greyhound Cafe. At least in 2014, they had non-compliant terminals that did not allow any way to opt-out of DCC.

Survived a week in Norway with no sign of DCC. Then on saturday I took a colleague from India shopping in Munich and noted that every bloody POS in stores tried to DCC him, quoting amounts in INR. The store staff knew about it and proactively punched the right keys on the pin terminal when I said we prefer to be charged in EUR. ^

Shouldn't they (in case you're not telling) ALWAYS use local currency, and if they don't, you've the right to void the transaction? Of course that's annoying (and eating your time) but I guess if enough people would tell them so, then they'll automatically choose local currency unless someone actually tells them they want to get scammed intentionally.

Ie, we intentionally get DCC'ed by not saying anything, then have it reversed, so that the cashiers understand the process and by default will not choose DCC as they fear another voiding process :D

That's not my experience. I got hosed by Ebeneezer's: I circled HKD on the charge receipt, but it posted in USD anyway. Scrooge must work there.


In my case above, I'd have to file a dispute to get them to honor what I selected. It's not worth the time for a small purchase.


Uh, yes you did. See your quote above.


If they did that, then there'd be no point in implementing DCC, as virtually nobody would voluntarily choose it if local currency was the default. So few people in fact that the implementation cost would probably be higher than the profit. The whole point of DCC is to make extra money off of consumer lack of awareness and indifference. And, once that's in place, it's an irresistible temptation for some merchants to cheat by not properly presenting the choice to the consumer, and/or not honoring the choice once made.

The posts you quoted are dated back in 2012 and 2014. Are these places still exist? I mean, given the rent rates in Hong Kong have gone thru a huge up surge during that period, many places are forced out of business...

Obviously the places we went for our meals differ from the places you guys on this thread went as none of the names quoted is recognizable. We went to places mainly locals, in particular, the local locals, went, like the Chinese banquet restaurant just above the Tin Hau MTR station. It was packed with local locals each morning and evening btw. The only exceptions not being too local might be 稻香 chain, Crystal Jade chain and Maxim chain. But you still dont find a single Westerner in 稻香 Wanchai/Causeway Bay location. We have not seen any Westerner there each time we went on each trip to Hong Kong (3 trips passing thru Hong Kong since May 2015). We have not seen a single Western face at the Crystal Jade location at IFC.

Let's face it, in Hong Kong, there are places catering to foreigners, westerners in particular. There are places catering to local communities. I say one more time, all the Hong Kong restaurants, shops, supermarkets we went, not a single one attempted to DCC. The only place tried hard to DCC was one local hotel.

For those of you seem always suffer the DCC, you should opt for AMEX cards for all your spend overseas instead. The exchange rate AMEX used is better than Visa anyway based to the very limited samples I have. MC of course has the best rate but AMEX only added 0.6% versus Visa added 1%. Yet you avoid DCC completely with AMEX cards. Problem solved. And you no longer be annoyed by this scam given y'all seem always encountered whether in Asia or Europe.

(I reported not being DCCed in Madrid in April this year as well when everyone on this thread said Spain was very bad. I even printed the instruction on how to counter a DCC based on the Spanish law but thankfully never need to use it.)

This can be a good approach, particularly if SPG or Delta are your cards of choice. The only downsides are that: 1) not all places accept AmEx, 2) AmEx might not have a competitive rate, and 3) your affinity card of choice might not be an AmEx.

I also feel like it's a defeatist attitude, sort of like using a UnionPay card in China (or Discover in Mainland China).

They all still exist:

http://www.openrice.com/zh/hongkong/...%96%AE-r174287

http://www.openrice.com/zh/hongkong/...E9%AE%AE-r2854

http://www.openrice.com/zh/hongkong/...%96%AE-r174287

(A closed restaurant appears as: http://www.openrice.com/zh/hongkong/...8%8F%9C-r17295 )


Weird as that's where I like to take visitors.

SCB EUR rates 1.76% over Unionpay http://www.hongkongcard.com/forum/fo...p?id=3939&p=15

Possibly, unfortunately I do not have the the receipt now to check.
Apart from that one incident in the airport I had no problems with DCC in Bali.

Just went to the IFC Greyhound Café for a look. Really crowded, offers fusion food.

Why you guys always go there even though it DCCs you?

If I take this mentality to the Mainland I'll starve...

The trick of changing the currency on Airbnb to avoid DCC doesn't work anymore. Once I entered my card details I got a dialog saying "This is a US card so it'll be charged in USD" and I wasn't given an option to change it.

I disputed it with Chase, Chase said "it seems like your card is charged by a US merchant, so even if the stay is abroad, DCC rules don't apply to them". Any thoughts here?