The Fidelity Amex is a good choice for these situations. Sure, there's a 1% FTF, but you're earning 2% cash back.

Avis
 

If you use Avis rental cars, there is now a check box on their website that allows them to use DCC. It's checked by default of course, but you can uncheck it.

Go into your account online, and edit credit cards. Then uncheck the DCC box.

Another good reason to have an online account to view your transactions/receipts/and customer information.

Thanks for the update. I know Avis was one of the DCC offenders, but it's good that there's at least the option now.

Same here on finding Flyer Talk. ^^

At the time, my local bank's ATM card would permit $200 per day withdrawal limit, and 3 free draws per month before imposing a small charge per draw (couple bucks, I think). But that was at least reasonable and something you could live with. I later "upgraded" it to a MC debit card just to get the $500/day ATM draw limit and they also dropped all the fees on their end. So that is about the best deal going. For intl. travel, I now pre-spot a bank-owned ATM near our first hotel and draw currency there or wherever is convenient and not charging outrageous fees using this ATM card, and also bring a mix of 0% FTF credit cards for charges.

The one card with a 1% FTF that I have relied on is the USAA MC (old style) for the convenience of offline PIN as first CVM. Sadly, that will drop back to signature-preferred when it renews next Feb, so we'll have to see how well that works. (I think jeff jaguar said his had issues doing transactions he had done successfully before with the old style card.) It was great while it lasted: bought train tickets in Belgium this spring when nobody else's card worked at the kiosk.

Just to be fair, the "new" downgraded USAA mc did work everywhere I tried it this past summer but while last year (2013) it worked as chip and pin, this summer (2014) at many of the same merchants, it was a chip and signature card. I did try to use it at an SNCF kiosk at CDG but what happened is before I left, I changed the pin online and tried to use the new pin but apparently when you change a pin on this card and several others, you have to make at least one emv transaction to re-write the offline pin on the chip. The USAA cards issued after April 2014 have signature as #1 priority for purchases which USAA has said was done for "business considerations" whatever they are. I can't say for sure it will not work as an offline pin as a secondary cvm at unpersonneled kiosks; ;my guess is it will. Maybe that'll make you feel somewhat better.

I told the merchant to bill in local currency before he ran the card. He claimed the machine automatically converted it. I did not know the existence of the law until reading this thread. I knew I could dispute the charge with Schwab but there are more important things to do in life than the $2.10 lost. Yes, as a consumer I should do my civic duty but...

[QUOTE=Happy;23719506]I told the merchant to bill in local currency before he ran the card. He claimed the machine automatically converted it. I did not know the existence of the law until reading this thread. I knew I could dispute the charge with Schwab but there are more important things to do in life than the $2.10 lost. Yes, as a consumer I should do my civic duty but...[/QUOE]

The lies of DCC:

1. "We have no control over it. It's done automatically by the terminal.:

2. "The amount in your currency is only being shown for your convenience. You are being billed in our currency"

3. "It is reqquired by local law."

4. "It's a good rate; better than your bank which charges a fee for currency conversion."

And after a customer is on to their scam...

5. "So sorry but the transaction cannot be voided."

Or the most frustrating of all

6. "No speak English."

Of course my most familiar experiences in seeing DCC in action have occurred in Europe. I am not familiar at all with practices in Asia oar Australia or Africa. Anybody with any of the other oies employed to scam people that I missed?

I was booking tickets for CDG station pickup in early Sep.
My flight arrived at 6:55
There was a train leaving 8:19
There was a train leaving 10:16 for 20-something Euros more per person.

I didn't dare take the 8:19. I thought I have to go 1. find the station and then 2. queue for the tickets. I can predict the time for (1) but not (2).

The thought did cross my mind I can use my Australian chip-and-pin Amex for a speedy CDG-Bordeaux tix and pick up the rest at Bordeaux later. But I'm still risking a FU with the SNCF kiosk and have to queue anyway. Also I was worried the Bordeaux station won't deal with foreigners.

I chickened out and bought the 10:16. Eventually I got to the ticket office and picked up the tix by 7:40...

Hmmph! Not until I see it in action or somebody else confirms your guess.

Speaking of CVM I actually didn't have to authenticate at all for a lot of unmanned kiosks in France - including tram tickets in Bordeaux, highway tolls in Normandy, Paris metro tix (x10) and an unmanned gas station in rural Normandy.

The tram tix/highway toll/Paris metro tix can be explained away by Visa having some sort of express pay/small ticket transaction system in Europe, with a limit similar to that in HK (around EUR20), but I bought 52EUR gas in the unmanned gas station - that's quite a hefty small ticket limit!

(I used the Fubon HK chip and sign card. No PIN for CVM)

I've never made a credit card purchase in Africa, so I can't explain there. I only did a day trip from Algeciras, but my guess is that DCC wouldn't be prevalent in a place like Morocco. I wasn't willing to find out at the carpet shop though!

I can only speak for Taiwan, HK, and Macau DCC experiences in Asia. Taiwan is very compliant - after a period of being extremely non-compliant. It also helps traveling with a native speaker. On my most recent trip to HK, I was able to opt out of DCC successfully at every place but Greyhound Cafe when I was with percysmith. Some restaurants in HK and Macau don't respect DCC choices, and you have to be wary when you get the carbon copy paper with the check box. You need to make sure that the cashier can input something to disable DCC after you've seen the verbiage.

DCC, at least as of June, was still uncommon in Australia. In my seven trips there in the last three years I have only seen DCC twice, both times in Brisbane. The first was at Coffee and Chocolate at Queens Plaza in Brisbane (unexpected) and the second was at F1RST Tax & Duty Free at BNE (expected). In the first case the girl had handed me the terminal to enter my PIN (even though I was using a US chip-and-signature card), and I saw the prompt, "USD 23.7X OK?" The cashier was monitoring and said, "Just press ok?" when we both stared at the prompt. I don't think she had ever dealt with a non-AUD card before, and her confused look indicated she wasn't trying to get me to accept DCC. I used the opportunity as a brief educational moment. "Sometimes the banks offer an opportunity for unsuspecting tourists to pay in the home currency, but it's a rip-off exchange rate. It's just another opportunity for these banks like ANZ to make money." Oh? ANZ is pulling the scam? Now we have a common nemesis. Heh heh heh... In fairness, I saw a bunch of other ANZ terminals in use that did not employ DCC, so I don't think the DCC cancer is widespread. There was another case of an eatery in Strathfield, but this is extremely rare. I've generally found the service in Australia to be friendly and accommodating. Known DCC culprits like David Jones and Myer can easily be avoided by specifying upfront that there will be an option, and you want to decline the option and pay in AUD.

Got hit with this at a store and hotel in Delhi , 4.5 and 4%

Was this a small store or a larger department store? We haven't had any reports from India so far, so this is bad news. There was no way to opt-out?

I was hit with DCC at the Oberoi Hotel in Bangalore in July. They were able to void it and refund but they defaulted to a DCC transaction with a ripoff exchange rate.

It also had what I think is one of the worst disclosures of the actual price (look how tiny the USD price is printed): http://i.imgur.com/Jcsrt31l.jpg

Small store in chandni chowk.

Having been swiping and chipping in Sydney for days. Never encountered DCC.
The point that in a fine dining place, you have to write down the tip amount first is kind of awkward. Then the waiter would keep saying thank you all the while they are making the CC transaction...

With the one sit-down restaurant here in the US where I used a chip card, it seemed possible to put tip amounts before and after authorization. It was pay at the counter so they put $0.00 for tip before running it and the receipt had a line to enter tip right below the $0.00 they entered. Weird that it was only before authorization there.

Welcome to FlyerTalk. Thanks for sharing your experience. I'm glad you were able to get the hotel to void the transaction without too much issue. I agree that the disclosure there is subtle. I wonder if on the merchant copy the box was already checked? It seems like in this case you have to explicitly agree to the DCC, but we know that more often than not DCC happens by default.

It's been my experience that DCC is rare in Australia, but it can still happen. David Jones, Myer, and duty free shops and airports are the prime locations for DCC in Australia. You don't have to worry too much with most restaurants and cafes although DCC can happen.

I didn't bother with card tips in France - I cashed everyone out. They didn't seem to want to ask even though I thought they deserved it (whenver they were less arrogant than expected).

I did make a purchase at David Jones (wonder what the owner of the department store felt when Pirates of the Caribbean was premiered), and didn't see DCC. I believe duty free could be different.

To me, US is the most tipped country, and it's maybe the only place that you can put a tip on CC after the authorization. Like UK, France, Australia, you need to tell them before hands how much you tip them so they run the card by that new amount.

I wondered the same thing. :D I have yet to make a purchase at either department store, so I haven't encountered DCC personally. There have been reports of others who have, however. Duty free is almost always a sure bet for DCC anywhere in the world.

It's definitely not the only place, but I would say the US and Canada are the two most common places where you would sign in the tip. I always feel slightly uncomfortable with the waiter hovering over me as I enter the tip, especially if I'm in a country where tipping isn't common. I usually match local customs, so I'm sure I've slighted some waiters by giving a 0-10% tip in locations where perhaps they've gotten a 15-20% tip from Americans before. I will certainly adjust if there is an included service charge or if the establishment deliberately tries to DCC me.

Well not quite true. I know of one London restaurant chain, there have to be more, where while you can argue the actual authorization does not take place till after the tip is entered, they hand you the terminal either after swiping the card (US mag strip) or inserting the emv card and then tell you to follow the instructions on the screen which starts by asking you whether you wish to enter a tip and guides you through the process which at the end asks for a pin if card is c&p and then tells you to return the terminal to the waiter/waitress who presses a button to authorize and complete the transaction. If a signature is required, it prints a signature slip for you to sign. It ends the thing by printing a receipt for you.

I've only seen this at Wagamama, as you've described, and at Outback Steakhouse at Niagara Falls (before it closed). I think from a DCC perspective I prefer this because you have control of the terminal throughout the transaction. With the way it works in these scenarios, you'd have more control to abort the transaction if you get a hint of forced DCC.

My first ever DCC experience was in Australia, back in 2007, at a cafe on the north side of Sydney harbor, near a ferry dock. The lady said the DCC was automatic & unavoidable because my card was American. I accepted it that time, but now I know better.

Just did a purchase on the top floor of DFS Sydney (so small), charged me AUD without any human interaction... Maybe Australia has been cleansed?

I've seen this before in a Chinese restaurant in Denmark, where the waiter tells you push this button for tip and push that button for no tip (when I tipped according to US standard, she was shocked)... To me in a country where tipping is not common, a POS like this let customers feel uneasy...

Either way, in these countries, tip must be included in the transaction amount in the first place (and you can tell tipping is not mandatory in these countries). Anyway, I do feel that the US routine is better, that you can just leave your signed slip with the tip amount and go.

Thank you - I've been a longtime reader and decided it was time to post after seeing that you hadn't had reports in India. The hotel I stayed at (an Aloft) also tried to sneak through DCC at checkin, but I was able to nip that by checking the tiny opt-out box.

For the Oberoi, the merchant copy box was not checked. I asked the original waiter to bill in rupees, and he brought back the DCCd slip, which I defaced, and he then got a manager who was able to rerun the sale without DCC (but you'll notice it took 8 minutes...)

Yeah, don't believe it either when they say, "The USD amount is just for your information." Another popular line is, "Check the box, and it'll be XXX currency." You did the right thing by defacing the receipt, and thanks for providing the reports. Starwood Properties have been pulling the DCC stunt for awhile. Was the box in the fine print on the check-in slip or on the credit card receipt? I did notice at the Oberai that the timestamp was 8 minutes apart.

It's far better to opt out of DCC at the source versus attempting a chargeback through your issuer. Most of the time the issuer will issue a courtesy credit, but sometimes the clueless CSRs don't know about DCC and will refuse to open a chargeback case. To avoid these potential headaches it's best to prevent DCC at the source. It's hard to tell how many places are complicit with DCC or simply don't know. There are definitely proprietors who are guilty here, but I would say it's not the norm.

When I was in London and Dublin in August, not a single restaurant I went to even tried to DCC me. The only place that I had a problem was the Dublin DoubleTree - Burlington Road. They used DCC with a 5% free without ever mentioning it and without asking.

What was the resolution? Were you able to get them to opt you out of DCC or did you realize it after the fact?

They charged the deposit direct in EUR, so I had no reason to suspect they'd charge the balance in USD. Both payment lines are formatted identically. As I used a card from Chase, which doesn't bother to give the original foreign currency figures online, I didn't notice until much later. Indeed, I would never have noticed if they hadn't stiffed us on HH points. It was only when I calculated the total exactly to determine exactly how many points we'd missed out on that I saw the discrepancy.

As for resolution, they say they will refund and re-bill me, but haven't done so yet.

Last week I was in India again, and this time militantly prepared. In the country club where we had issues last time they remembered me and asked me to wait while the cashier called the contact person who had recently installed the new POS. He called the guy and said 'give me clear instructions on how to his able the DCC nonsense' and the guy on the other end guided him step by step (function+44+0 disables it for that terminal ...+1 reactivated it) ;) So no trouble there.

While waiting for the flight home the wife found something at the duty free store in DEL. I volunteered to pay for it and clearly told the cashier 'do not do DCC, I want to be charged in INR!' and he promptly charged me in EUR which got me really pissed. His supervisor jumped and resolved it though.

Though I did have that actually happen to me, where it really was, at the Flying Pig Uptown in Amsterdam. USD amount on my receipt, but my receipt was printed before currency selection on the terminal. I watched her hit the EUR button and I got charged in EUR, despite my USD receipt I got. The one I signed was EUR. It was weird.

Now I get to be like the merchants who say, "Excellent choice, sir!" :D I can see why you got really upset at the duty free. I used to give cashiers the benefit of the doubt, but I don't anymore in most cases. You have to believe at airport duty free they know what they're doing, so the cashier's actions seemed deliberate and intentional. This is opposed to the cafe in Brisbane where the DCC caught me off guard, and the girl had a thoroughly confused look on her face.

I've had it happen that way too at Chung Yo Department Store where the transaction is initially charged with DCC and must have been modified after the transaction was initially complete. It had just so happened that a prior transaction had preemptively disabled DCC, so when I saw the exchange rate and DCC verbiage on a later receipt I flipped out. The problem is there is really little consistency to how DCC is implemented, so each situation can have a different twist.

In short, don't believe everything at face value that you're told when it comes to DCC. If you say the exchange rate is just for my information, show me what input you made to make sure my currency selection was honored? If there is no tick box/opt-out box that you get, proceed with extreme caution. It would be your word against the merchant's in a chargeback. If you get a check box, especially on carbon copy paper, make sure the merchant has additional input to honor your local currency selection. Some places do honor the tick mark (Disneyland in Hong Kong), and some places don't (Greyhound Cafe in Hong Kong).

Hkg do day 1 - we only used the foreign spending at Intercontinental Lobby Lounge. No DCC even without asking for hkd charging.

Dinner was at a hawker market place that surprisingly took cards, but I didn't arrange for a visitor to try. It was a Hang Seng terminal anyway so DCC choice is expected to be honoured.

I think what happens with many processors who support dcc and want the merchnts to try to push it is when an out of country card is either swiped or dipped, as soon as the system recognizes the card's currency is not the local one, it prints a preliminary slip listing the amount in the currency of the card. This is supposed to be shown to the scamee to make his decision as to whether he wishes to be scammed or pay in local currency. What sometimes happens is, of course, the cashier simply fails to offer the choice and chooses for himself or herself that the sucker in front of him or her wishes to be scammed and has one of the lies all ready in case the scamee notices.

Thanks for the report back! Enjoy the DO. Hang Seng has always respected DCC choices, right? I think you said Francfranc uses them too.

Yeah, I firmly believe the entire setup is deliberately designed to get you to take the bait. And sometimes there is just the illusion of choice but no real choice is available (locked down terminals, uncooperative merchant, etc.). It's also brain games because even if you're in Ireland for instance and the merchant says, "That'll be 83 dollars and 42 cents." most people don't even pause to question... huh... what? wait a minute? Why are you quoting me in dollars? This country uses the euro. Then they sign and implicitly agree to the DCC amount without realize they just got ripped off.

It's also like the terminals that give a choice of payment currencies the default is always the DCC currency. ATMs make it seem like the world will end if you don't lock in the exchange rate. "Caution. If you use the networks exchange rate we have no control over how much you'll be charged. Do you agree to not hold us liable and use the network rate?" I'll take my chances, thank you... I think I'll be just fine. POS terminals also are designed to default to DCC and require counterintuitive steps to disable. You have to press no/cancel, and how many times have you seen cashiers repeatedly press the Accept/OK green button compulsively? Again, this is all designed to get people to accept DCC by default.

Most cashiers just hit enter repeatedly to get the customer copy after printing the merchant copy signature slip. So even if the POS terminal asks the cashier "so what currency did the customer tick on the signature slip?" they just accept the default suggested DCC currency ;):rolleyes:

Correct. For example, at Isaac's Hostel in Dublin (where they were aware of DCC and happy to help me avoid it, acknowledging it was a rip off), I said to her when handing the card "charge in EUR, not USD" and she said no problem, just hit "NO" when it asks "amount OK?"

Here is how it went:

She inserted the card (reader on her end)
PIN pad popped up "US$XX.XX Amount OK?"
Hitting no caused the transaction to proceed in EUR

How the f*** is that "active choice" as the networks require? It's worded so that you'd think the option is yes or don't use the card. Nothing about the prompt indicates that no results in an EUR transaction.

:eek::eek::eek::eek: Wow! I'm surprised you didn't get the, "Excellent choice, sir!" I'm happy that some establishments have wised up to this.

The message "US$XX.XX Amount OK?" was similar to the ANZ terminal I encountered at a cafe in Brisbane where the cashier said, "Press OK." I felt like I had just stepped on a landmine and had to make my next move carefully. Likewise, I pressed No as in, "No, that's not ok!" and the transaction completed in AUD. But it's sneaky.