I was at an appointment today when the technician taking my payment noticed my Chase Sapphire Preferred and really liked the card. Another person got to talking about how they're using the chips in Europe "and even they convert to dollars for you now!" I used this as an educational opportunity to talk about DCC, and now three more people are aware of the issue and will ask for "local currency" in their travels. ^

I also notice that this makes it post 1776 for me on FlyerTalk. For all of you other 'mericans and honorary 'mericans out there, I wish everyone a safe and happy 4th of July holiday! :D

Good job and best wishes to you as well

Thanks for the link. Very useful. Anyone know the link for the MasterCard currency conversion tool? (if one exists)

Yep. I'll add it to the wiki, but you can find it here.

That's the stuff.

Amex and Discover don't have websites like these, at least not to my knowledge...

Happy July 4th~

Thank you guys and again have a good July 4th. I for one should be back in Dallas in time for the fireworks tonight;)

Lucky you!

I, on the other hand, am stuck with Beijing's fog and pollution...

Amex have a currency exchange tool when your logged in (atleast on the uk version of the site anyway)

is it in the "more account options" section at the bottom left corner?

Had an interesting/horrowing time at the Kenilworth Hotel in Kolkata on June 20. After a nice lunch with my mother I take out my German chip&pin MC and they charge the card and show me the terminal to enter my pin. I instantly note DCC in action and ask them to reverse the transaction. After some back and forth the resaturant manager understands what I was talking about and tries to go thru the charge process slowly to see if its possible to select the local currency. It was not. The terminal had no option at all. The charge slip had the usual tick box and blabla, but it clearly mentioned that the selected currency was EUR and not the the local INR, so I refused.

So off we went to the central cashier of the hotel, who also didn't have a solution to the problem. 2-3 failed/cancelled charges later he showed me a matrix that their bank gave them on how to make sure to 'benefit' from DCC. It seems Axis bank equips the terminal like that from the get go. The manager appeared and also gave me a lecture like I was a kid about how the exchange rate (77INR/EUR) is better, pointing at the fictional cash exchange rate they had on the board (74INR) I asked him for that days newspaper which listed the interbank rate at 81.86 INR:mad:

Sadly I didn't know that Amex doesn't participate in the DCC nonsense (only saw it in the wiki today and recall some mention of it in the Axis bank matrix shown to me) so I paid cash.

To their defence the frontline employees of most retailers don't get what the heck we are talking about. Whenever I throw a fit, they gladly turn over the terminal and allow me to go thru the process step by step with them and both parties are happy.

Axis bank also mentions it quite innocently in their promo material:
http://www.axisbank.com/business-ban...s-offered.aspx

I can't seem to find an equivalent on the US website, but it may exist somewhere that I'm just not seeing.

Thanks for the story. In this case it's either better to use AmEx if you're unwilling to fight. In my case I would have defaced the receipt, made sure the box was checked, taken a photo with my phone or camera, and proceeded to file a MasterCard Reason Code 4846 chargeback with my bank since the merchant had cheated me.

Well I had such a situation before and circled INR plus struck out EUR with checking the box etc, but they still charged me in EUR (of course). On noticing that back home I mailed all the documentation and they did nothing for me.:mad:

That's really frustrating. Banks here usually will credit small amounts without documentation because they don't want to deal with the hassle of a chargeback. On a larger purchase it's far more difficult to ignore, and they'll have to do the chargeback. A chargeback is what we want on this forum because it creates a big hassle for the merchant when they get a chargeback. As long as you kept documentation, I don't know why your bank did nothing for you, but I've found businesses in Europe to have more of an adversarial relationship with their customers.

Two days in London, and I feel the DCC problem is not so problematic in this city.

The IC Park Lane does have this option box on the check-in sheet regarding DCC, but it is to opt-in.

Having fish and chips on Oxford St and swiped the CSP, there was no option at all for DCC, just print and sign, amount in GBP.