Thanks for the detailed reply. I will request to be billed in RMB at hotels, but the suggestion of "just use Discover" sort of runs contrary to this thread. Does the cancel trick work on all terminals? I thought I remember some posts on the China DCC thread by percysmith that noted the terminals were locked down in a way that forced DCC.

I think percysmith mentioned Shenzhen or Guangzhou. Shanghai is the most southern I've been to, and I've been fine so far.

Beijing and Shanghai is particularly professional at this matter.

Just mention "bill me in RMB". Always ask for the most senior guy, and actually, don't let the non-Chinese guys deal with this matter. Those guys tend to be trainees, and don't know the story behind... Present the idea of RMB billing way at the beginning and constantly reiterate this throughout and make sure they say "yes we will turn it off" without hesitation.

I have not been to Mainland China, only Hong Kong and Macau. I got hit with DCC at the Venetian in Macau, but I didn't see DCC in Hong Kong. This was in July 2011. I didn't notice about the DCC until I went back to check my records while creating this thread. In Taiwan they will always print a quote slip in TWD or USD, and I've never had a problem getting billed in TWD. My wife always specifies TWD in case there is a language barrier, but usually the cashiers at department stores will give me the quote slip to tick an X in TWD. The only exception I've seen has been at the Novotel in Taoyuan where they will place a hold charge on your card in USD, but it gets removed when you check out.

Being able to Google in an another language also helps expand your search results rather than being limited to English languages sources. That's how I do it for stuff related to Japanese (anime, manga, video games, Japanese mass transit, etc.). :)

In Hong Kong (Percysmith definitely is more familiar with this matter, but I'll tell my experience), there is DCC on every machine (seems so), but you do get the choice. 100% of the POS I ran into (around 100 so far), will print a choice slip first, and after they enter your choice, you get another confirmation slip. This is the way at most of the boutique stores (Hermes, Chanel, etc.).

In restaurants and hotels, they almost always ask you HKD or USD, and I've had no problem so far choosing HKD. Some restaurants don't ask first, so I'll tell them to use HKD.

Like Korea, you can be "chosen" to use USD, as suggested by percysmith, simply because the final choice is entered by merchants by hand. I tend to believe 99.9999% of the merchants are good people who might not know what this DCC is, and there are always evils who would con you deliberately as DCC might be beneficial to the merchants on some degree.

So, in Hong Kong, always make it clear at the beginning. Its system is more foreign CC friendly than China's. So don't be afraid.

I'm not worried in Hong Kong. As I said, I never saw DCC there, but perhaps that was 3 years ago and the problem has gotten worse. Over the week in Macau/HK back in July 2011 the only place that charged DCC was the Venetian Macau for my hotel stay. Even the ferry tickets from the travel desk at the Venetian were charged correctly in Patacas. So was the AJ Hackett Bungy Jump. :D

My concern with DCC has always been Mainland China.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hong-...nversions.html by BoCHK (2011)
Fortress HK by DBS HK (2013)
DCCing a FT ambassador by HSBC/Global Payments (2013)

Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC) - Master Thread
 

Bosnia turned out to be easy. Legally businesses and ATMs can only charge for items in local currency. Not a single DCC here.

Same as Indonesia

The same for Indonesia.

Thai has DCC, but can be turned off. In a not so safe country, it is wise not to use CC that frequently. So in Thai I just use cash for eat out, and use CC for hotels.

Yes, but hotels can quote prices in USD and then give you a crappy exchange rate to IDR. 3-5% is what I usually see.

Are these DCC:

1) controllable, that you get to choose the currency?
2) on by default, by it can be turned off on your request, like China?
3) unbeatable?

However, you can let the websites of hotels do a quote in USD. Moreover, currency fluctuation is really big in IDR. That can account for some of the difference you saw.

Everything is settled in IDR, so sticking to that instead of USD is a wise choice.

As the "ambassador" in question with respect to Percy's third mentioned post, I can assure you that there was no easy work around. In fact, he ended up settling the bill with a local credit card.

Well we didn't try entering the amount, hitting enter followed by cancel.

I take what zyxlsy says on face value, however, I don't see why anyone else (such as HSBC) has to offer such an opt-out feature if they can get away with it (no policing by Visa/local monetary authorities).

But, that's what I think is good about using CC in HK. The ones I ran into all have the control of DCC, and they always ask you. To me that's like 100% for the whole HK. I've never failed on choosing HKD so far...

If there are actually POS machines like the ones in China, then I would have to abandon the "perfect" sign I give to HK in my mind and be vigilant...

You have a better experience in HK than moondog then.
Coyote Bar & Grill manager claimed there's no method to switch off DCC. Even though there's a note on the counter saying there should be a certain "Function 24" to do it.

I think we ran the transaction at least twice (didn't we, moondog?). There's no obvious "汇率查询" phase where we can hit the cancel button/tear out the phone line. Caveat emptor in HK.

Also see the Fortress post, where lingua101 got DCCed by Fortress Electronics on his SGD card despite selecting HKD on a carbon slip.

I wonder can we settle in USD banknotes (literally greenbacks) in Bintan or Bali?

Unlike DCC, I'm not so mad about the fake USD translation. There's usually the rate at the reception and I translate everything back to IDR on my iPhone <-- *before* deciding how much to splurge.

hmmm, maybe I did have some good experience.

The restaurants I can remember using USD card without DCC problems are:

Outback in Causeway Bay
Jade Garden in Kim Sham Tsui
... (cant remember all, there are about 50)

The POS machines in HK usually have a remote keypad with card reader at the top, right? There are two buttons right below the screen, and when using oversea cards, one button is for HKD, the other for home currency, right? When prompting the selections, the screen also shows the rate, right?

Some of the machines I can remember do print one slip first, and then you choose the currency, and the machine prints out another, currency confirmation page.

If something shows like "汇率查询", that looks so much like Mainland China's DCC system, where you need to hit cancel... Maybe some merchants are using Mainland China POS machines illegally in HK to save swipe fees?

I think in every country you can settle cash transactions with greenbacks. Cash is hard to regulate, ha...

Indonesia doesn't allow USD CC transactions (good thing to me), but hotels tend to show the price in USD to make it readable (I check the balance of my debit card in Bali and print it out, to show others that I am a billionaire, in IDR of course). My personally experience in Bali is that the rate of USD to IDR fluctuates so badly, so it is possible that when the transaction actually happens, you pay more USD for the same IDR (mine was like 1% higher?). I don't think it is the hotels deliberate faults, maybe we all should just remember the actual price in IDR to avoid confusion.

I think we tried 3 times and even got the manager involved. "Function 24" was certainly news to me, but the fact that it exists (in theory) suggest to me that opting out might have been possible in the end. That having been said, my principle objection to DCC is generally not worth 30 minutes of my time for a $50 discrepancy, let alone a $4 hit.

I book 30+ nights a year in Indonesia. I'm very aware of what the daily exchange rate is. The hotel sets the USD>IDR exchange rate, and over the last few years it's averaged at least 3% over the normal exchange rate.

At least for Hyatts, I've always been able to pay the bills in USD, without having to convert to rupiah. This has saved me quite a bit.

Sweetheat Restaurant doesn't. Well they're noticeably downmarket from Jade Garden and Outback...they don't take AE whilst Jade Garden/Outback would.


Yes.
But like Dongguan Golf Club (which also has that), a return to base is needed and a carbon slip is printed (without stopping for currency selection).

Seen that in Thailand, Taiwan
But not in HK - "PLS SELECT AMOUNT TO PAY HKD AMOUNT [USD/AUD] AMOUNT" on carbon paper is the one I've seen in HK with visitors.

moondog's one didn't.
But then again I suspect they imported the 查询-less Guangdong version firmware.

But would chain hotels like Angsana and Westin take them? I don't normally carry a stack of greenbacks with me but if they take them I'll bring them.

You mean the hotel rate is based on USD, and is converted back to IDR?

I thought if a hotel is based in Indonesia, the hotel rate should be based on IDR first, then they quote the IDR price in USD for your convenience. Am I wrong on this?

I just pulled out my bill from St.Regis Nusa Dua. The room charge is 5,694,975.00 IDR, and in another column 486.75 USD. I really didn't pay attention to the USD amount, because I know I would settle the bill in IDR anyway, and my card doesn't charge foreign transaction fee. Did I misunderstand something here?

No but you were probably quoted USD486.75 when you booked the hotel (it's now quoting me USD500 now for 4-6 Apr, without ability to convert the currency back to IDR).

I wouldn't bring cash for a hotel stay, I thought you mean grab a bite or something, haha...

I did see POS machines printing out secondary slips to confirm your currency choice. The place is the Van Der Cleef store in Pacific Place in Admiralty.

Yes, I see most of the machines are machines where you need to enter "HKD" on the keypad and put the remote pad back to the base. Theoretically you have 100% control over DCC on this type of machines, right? Am I missing something?

Dude, my bad. The prices from SPG, IC, and Marriott for Bali hotels are indeed priced in USD. So when paying the actual price in IDR, we pay more.

How do you settle your bill in USD by CC? I think the law prohibits that.

For Laguna Nusa Dua, the price is 1,810,699 IDR (159.34 USD according to Visa), and 158 USD. SPG.com can let you choose the currency.

How can we avoid this when using these big chains? looks like their price is based on USD, just like Lotte Duty Free, where if you pay with KRW, you pay more.

For my St. Regis stay, the quoted price is 486.75 USD, the charged price is 5694975 IDR.

According to Visa:

"The rate shown applies to transactions processed by Visa Europe on 27 November 2013 with a currency conversion fee of 0.00%.

5,694,975.00 INDONESIAN RUPIAH = 489.77 UNITED STATES DOLLAR."

Only 0.7%, not bad, I was quite lucky, right?

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Lotte duty free is usd denominated. It's as if they are a us shop. Any other currency card is foreign

If we mentally add 4% to all usd prices we see, we are fine.

Actually from a payment perspective using visa in china can be thought of the same way. But the big objection I have is I get denied all my foreign spending miles bonuses - sometimes approaching 8 mile/US$ - now we have to care about that?

I noticed a funny thing in Hong Kong. I primarily used my CSP, but the folks I were with used other cards, including other Chase-issued cards. At the Ritz-Carlton, for example, my receipt didn't offer a DCC, but everyone else's did. I wonder if there's some magic bits that can be set on the card to keep that from happening.

Last night I was at Big Bamboo in Jing'an and the duty manage came over to me with a smile on his face to tell me that, several months ago, he sent my advice about DCC being rude up the food chain and just last week the owner of the company agreed to completely disable this feature on the POS machines in all of their restaurants.

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Billatq: nope. There's definitely no issuer-controlled option to opt out of DCC for visa and MC - otherwise you have all issuers setting no DCC by default which defeats visa and mc's reasons (anti-trust or profit) to set up DCC.

More likely the cashier opted DCC out for you, either due to something you said or input error. But did not do so for your friends.

That's cool! I will be in Shanghai tomorrow, wanna check this Big Bamboo out.

Which bank do they use as their acquirer bank?

Which bank issues their POS machines?

I had a problem with this recently at the Hotel Novotel Paris Gare Montparnasse. They swiped my Visa card and immediately a CC signature slip printed out with the amount in USD & fine print at the bottom saying I've been offered a choice of currencies & agree to their exchange rate + 3%. I told the hotel clerk to cancel the charge and start again and only charge in Euros. She said it automatically came up in USD and there was no option to decline. She refunded the amount in Euros, but didn't refund the 3% exchange rate upcharge, so my CC statement showed a total refund of a lesser amount. When she manually keyed in my CC number instead of swiping it (on the second attempt) the signature slip came out in Euros. So it seems that swiping vs keying in the number can make a difference in regards to being charged a DCC or not (at least at Novotel branded hotels).

The original charge - the lack of USD refund (void charge) sounds like my experiences at Gallaries Lafayette (Montparnesse too) and Harrods Knightsbridge.

Surprised the clerk can key in your card but probably cos its a hotel she took your payment as if it's a phone booking - many other merchants won't be able to do that.

I won't bother complaining to Accor - just like writing to /dev/null or Zhongnanhai.
I'd chargeback them to get even - both the original rort charge and the improperly-handled refund. i will make it very clear to the bank that I'm not seeking a handout from them, but paperwork grief from Accor.

We went to coyote in wanchai again last night. Their staff is every bit as clueless about dcc as they were last year.

Yeah, I called Capital One & they did a "courtesy" refund of the difference, so I should now be square as far as the DCC refund goes, but I would have rather had the hotel take the hit instead. I agree that trying to bring this issue up to Accor will only bring up a deer-in-the-headlights response or a staged language barrier issue. At least now I know to preemptively tell Accor/Novotel-branded hotel clerks to charge in Euros only, as I have heard this is an ongoing problem with this hotel brand.

P.S. I have purchased from Harrods' Gatwick & Heathrow airport stores & they always gave me a choice to pay in USD or GBP (I always paid in GBP). I don't think I've ever bought anything from their Knightsbridge store though.

Actually you can key the card number in on an emv terminal like you can on any us terminal. You just type it in when it says insert, swipe or tap card. It's just some merchants will refuse to key the card. I've had to do it once or twice when a card wouldn't swipe and then do a manual imprint (apart from Amex where the 4 digit code is good enough to prevent chargeback).

Purely and simply, she is a liar. Period. At some point in the transaction, she was asked whether you wished to pay in euro or in US dollars and to press the appropriate button. Also, every charge has to have provision to be voided....not credited. I don't care what they say. They are liars almost crooks when they say that (although perhaps they are simply students trying to pick up an extra euro or two). Every terminal has to have provision to void a transaction as honest mistakes do sometimes occur (you know entering 532 euro instead of 5.32 euro, the finger accidentally (note no quotation marks) off the decimal point as the amount was entered. Of course, many pos terminals print the amount off the cash register and the clerk does not enter the amount yada yada yada. There is no way in the world the clerk couldn't have voided the transaction.