Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC) - Master Thread
 

Just got to Berlin. My lodging here didn't even give me an option and the terminal automatically selected DCC for me. I told the receptionist beforehand to charge in Euro but she wasn't helpful. I crossed out the DCC agreement and USD section and will charge back later.

I'm really hating DCC after three weeks here now. It's automatic almost everywhere.

Per chance, when you checked in, did you sign something which may have included (in German) your agreement to this hideous scam? That is one of the new ways some merchants are trying to get around the visa/mc prohibition that one can only be scammed with dcc if they agree to it. Much like the garbage Avis has been pulling.

Nope. Just handed over my passport and credit card. I told the clerk to charge in Euro and she said "we'll see if it asks." At no point did she press any buttons after the swipe.

Edit: I'll add that they're pretty hostile to CCs in general at this place. They tacked on a CC surcharge and tried to get me to pay cash several times.

Was AE an option?

I'm using Arrival/Venture points to pay for this all so it has to be one of those two. It seems every complaint I send to Barclay nets me 5000 points, so this could be profitable anyway.

Was this a relatively large hotel or a smaller Rick Steves for lack of a better term type of hotel? Was it part of a large chain (you know Marriot, Sheraton or the like?) Well actually, I don't visit German (or the Netherlands) nearly as much as I do the UK and France, but I have read that both of those countries simply have a tradition that cash is king. I mean in the UK, you can walk down most any street and merchant after merchant has credit card decals plastered in the window. It's really rare in the UK to come across merchants who don't take credit cards or really pressure you to pay cash although some are reluctant to take plastic for small purchases. Germany and the Netherlands are completely different matters.

It's simply the way it is; not that I'm trying to defend the hotel.

I was in Italy three months back where cash is king even more than the Germans but I think we used a hotel aggregator for each Rick Steves Italian hotel we stayed in who handled payment (Rome, Venice).

More than rare. I live in the UK and I haven't been anywhere that hasn't taken card in the last 3 years or so. Although the UK is the second or third most cashless country in the world according to MasterCard. France is very similar from experience, even very small (2 or 3 tables) restaurants in the middle of nowhere still usually take card. I agree about the odd convenience store that won't take card for under £5 transactions but they normally cave in if they think your going to walk out :P The self service machine in my local Sainsburys (Supermarket for those of you who don't know) don't actually take cash anymore, so even if your just buying something thats 30 or 40p you still have to pay by card (Usually contactless).

Haha, totally a smaller Rick Steve's type place.

I must confess that even myself, who fancies himself as the credit card king (I guess there are others here too who use cards for every last thing whether at home or on holiday) and the only time in the last 6 months or so I've spent cash for anything (I live in the NYC area of the USA) is for 2 haircuts and this includes a trip to Europe last June including a cruise, a trip to the left coast of the USA in December but I have my own self imposed limit i.e. I will not use a credit card for amounts less than $1 US, £1 or €1. The thought of going into Sainsbury, buying a 49p bottle of water and using a credit card, I must admit, does intrigue me! Now I know because in the past, I would have to buy 2 bottles of water and add on an aero bar to meet my self imposed minimum!

Haha I think thats what they thought that people would do as they'd feel silly buying something on card for 40p but people don't really seem to care. Especially with contactless, its still much quicker than paying cash and getting tons of coins from the machine.

I've ended up with a $0.44 remainder at the register at Staples (used coupons and $40 printer ink recycling certs) that I paid for with my JCB card that counted toward the $50 JCB bonus! :D

I'm still waiting for contactless to take off here in the US. Unfortunately, the overblown media hype of "hackers stealing your info from a mile away" stories scared a lot of the people away from them, and of course there's also "the NSA is spying on me with chips on credit cards, run away, run awaaay (ala Monty Python)" people too. Thanks to these, not many cards are available with contactless capability.

Things will speed up once EMV has been rolled out in the US. EMV can be painfully slow sometimes (Especially if the merchant doesn't have a LAN connection) and as EMV contactless is usually offline, its instant.

I think we stand a better chance of mobile payment taking off. Think of the Starbucks or mobile boarding pass model where you can have them scan the barcode off of your phone.

I don't think contactless payment suffers from a perception problem, but so few places consistently accept it and so few cards support it that it never took off. The problem I see with too much reliance on one's phone is what happens when the battery dies or the phone crashes at an inopportune time? There's no fallback technology. I've already had a few fumbles myself with mobile boarding passes where the AA app hiccuped right before the gate agent scanned it.

Well, most smartphones these days come with pre-built NFC technology built in, so there actually won't be any need to read off the QR barcode off the phone screen. Half the time, the laser isn't able to read it anyways depending on the reflection on the screen itself and for the most part, that's what they do over in Europe and Asia where they're years ahead of us in uses of NFC smartphone technology.

I can board a plane or ride the Shinkansen in Japan using an NFC smartphone without even turning it on or showing the screen!