This are fair comments. Likewise, I would be perfectly fine if DCC in all instances honored the quote slip and billed me in local currency.

Well it's not much data, only the one place and it's a large chain where the cashier probably wouldn't care or not. However, it was in English and my friend only speaks French, so if I wasn't there to tell him "no!" I don't know how it would have gone.

Look forward to you reporting back if you experience it on your next visit.

I'll be on the lookout for it. I had honestly thought Australia was safe since I have not encountered DCC even after using my card all over the place at many chain hotels, restaurants, and grocery stores. If I had to guess was this either at Myer or David Jones?

Coles or Woolworths for groceries? They have self-checkout, but even if you use a checkout-chick the machine is always faced towards you so you can see everything that happens. Again, I would have no idea if they have DCC or not.

Taj posted for HK$12,106.26, meaning they posted USD as promised. I can tear up the seven page dispute form I prepared for Citi (my issuer) now.

However for three days even an experienced cardholder like me was kept in suspense.
The cardholder receipt is the dreaded double unticked transaction currency, and is identical for the DCCed transaction (which the first case was, as the void slip shows) and the non-DCCed transaction (the second one, posted for HK$12,106.26 today).
The held amount is not useful as whether the transaction will be DCC as you said - only whether the terminal waits for a choice or not seems to matter.


(Sorry can't comment for Australia - I have AUD Amex and Visas there)

I know I've purchased at Woolworths without DCC in Sydney. I can't remember if I went there last time (March 2013). If not, I certainly did on my previous trip in August 2012. August 2012 was back before I got any mag stripe cards, and I didn't have any issues with a swipe-and-sign transaction, as I believe you call it. My wife and I visited a number of places in Sydney and Melbourne during our March 2013 trip and did not see any signs of DCC. Unfortunately, once DCC rears its ugly head it tends to spread like wildfire.

Second day in Singapore. Tens of transactions without incurring DCC.

There are places like DFS where your can choose the currency you want. Other places simply use S$ by default.

My understanding is that if the slip shows exchange rate, DCC has happened already, regardless of the country. The slips I've been getting in Singapore don't have rates and things, but only have S$ marks.

That's true in Mainland China. From what I've read from our resident experts here is that it's a function of the payment terminals not allowing a selection after the quote slip has appeared. However, Taiwan will honor the currency selection on the quote slip. I've heard merchants in Thailand will too, but I haven't been to Thailand to test this out personally. I don't know about Singapore, but I'd assume they'd honor the selection on the quote slip too. If not, maybe imposing DCC against a customer's will should be punishable by caning. :D

In Taiwan the merchants where I've seen DCC have primarily been department stores, and they've always given me the final charge slip showing TWD. I have my wife explain to them upfront that I want to be charged in TWD, not USD, and they've always been able to accommodate. The only other place I've seen DCC has been at the airport Novotel. They force the room authorization hold to be DCC, but since this charge falls off I don't complain too much. I use AmEx at the Taipei Sheraton, and we book through a local travel portal, which doesn't use DCC since it's all Taiwanese using it, for all other hotels.

I just don't see a lot of DCC in Singapore. Not like Hong Kong, where DCC is prevalent but almost 100% defeat-able. In Singapore I've only seen it at DFS.

You use your AMEX SPG card in Taiwan???

I don't have the SPG card. I used my Platinum. At the time my Chase Marriott card was my primary, but I always considered it bad form to use at another hotel chain. :D

My experience:

Thailand (last April): seperate slip offered first, haven't experienced any problems turning down DCC. A THB-only slip then comes out.

Taiwan (last December): similar to Thailand. Also had the hold in HKD, but reversed and finalised in TWD on checkout.

Singapore (also last June): not much DCC noted. Then again Singapore is this super compliant place - perhaps Global Payments executives and their ilk don't look forward to getting spanked for fxcked firmware.

About Singapore, maybe what I said in jest about caning is actually true. :eek: You're right though. Singapore is all about compliance and following the rules.

Which property did you have this happen in Taiwan? Was it also the Novotel?

Wirelessly posted (beckoa's BB: Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9810; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.11+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.1.0.694 Mobile Safari/534.11+)

Had this happen and chose HKD in HKG- was I ok in HKG?

The timing of your post is uncanny because yesterday I had a dcc run in with the exact same manager at coyote that got me rowled up last year and was planning sending Percy smith relevant documents for posting here. The short of it is my colleague who picked up the tab was absolutely billed in USD and proved this to the manager who was insistent that we were mistaken.

Just got my AMEX Platinum as well. Tried it in Singapore, where AMEX is quite preferred, even more preferred than Visa just by the looks.

Exactly!

In Hong Kong, my experience is that if you have a slip for currency selection, especially at a luxury store, you will tick the currency and the merchant will input that on the terminal. You get a final slip in the currency chosen.

Other places in Hong Kong, you choose the currency on the keypad when your card is swiped. You get the slip after choosing the currency.

But as Moondog mentioned, some crooks in HK WILL DCC you before you tick your choice on the slip. So when in a bar or something, look out. Regular restaurants, stores, and other places are fine from my own experience.