Any reason why you guys are discussing EMV related acceptance questions on this thread? Why not use the EMV chip failure thread or at the very least, the actual EMV thread?

You're right. It just drifted there. Sorry.

Back to the topic of DCC.

With my most recent experience of DCC in London and Paris, based on 100+ transactions with 4-5 soft DCC (self-selecting currency) and 0 hard DCC, can we assume DCC in London and Paris is not bad at all? I was quite surprised the French didn't pull the "it's for your convenience" one on me... I went to Outlets, 5-star hotels, Michelin 3* restaurants, all sorts of places you would be expecting DCC, both in London and Paris, but no there were not...

Any others have experience to the contrary?

This only applies to London and Paris. I understand things would be much different if locations are changed.

Wouldn't DCC be less pervasive elsewhere? One would assume the scam is most likely to take place closest to major tourist hubs. The last time I was in London was nearly three years ago, and I didn't seem to encounter DCC then. It's definitely not as much of a problem as it is in China.

My apologies again for moving the thread in the wrong direction. I do agree with your observations about London and Paris especially. Perhaps, just as a guess, it is not surprising about Paris because after all the French still have delusions (whether warranted or not) of the grandeur of France, that French should be the international language and purified of the many Anglo words that have seeped in (le weekend) and never could understand how the upstart Americans could have their language and currency rule the world. Everybody should understand French Francs then and of course euro now.

Much the same about the Brits. Many still think the central currency of the world is sterling. (Other than one hotel I've stayed at and I've been in London each year since 1996 at least one or two times) the only other time I've heard dcc being tried is at the phony half price theatre ticket office on the pedestrian street between Leicester Square station and the actual Leicester Square (the official TKTS booth has never tried).

Of course, I would suspect you would find things in Dublin quite a bit different!

Had a DCC offer at the Flying Pig Uptown in Amsterdam today. They have the terminal and insert your card but she handed it to me when the DCC offer screen came up and said "it needs to know if you want to pay in Euros or Dollars". Offer screen was correctly worded - press 1 for Euro and 2 for Dollar. Exactly as it should be. If it's going to happen. Which it shouldn't.

I'm curious how the terminal figures out if you are a potential DCC candidate: do they have a database on the first 4 digits that ID the bank behind your Visa/MC? Or does the EMV chip contain your native currency?

EMV chips contain track equivalent data to the magnetic stripe. There is a three-digit currency code (ISO 4217) contained on the track two data, so if the terminal is capable of DCC for that currency code the terminal will offer the exchange. DCC can happen with any type of card transaction, EMV or swipe.

That's what I thought. If Paris and London don't pull DCC, who will? But it was so much better than I expected. I was like bringing guns to a knife fight, and found there was no fight at all...

That's why Dublin doesn't get my travel money~ :D

I think we're just used to the horror stories about forced DCC in China. I think some of the larger hotel chains still pull the forced DCC throughout Europe, particularly Marriotts in the UK. I've read that Starwood properties are guilty of the practice as well. I don't have experience with Starwood since I typically use an AmEx at Starwood properties, but the last time I had a paid stay at a UK Marriott property was at the LHR Marriott on Bath Road, and I got nicked with DCC there. Unfortunately this was before I was really aware of DCC, so it was one of two times I was unknowingly hit. (The first was at the Venetian Macau.)

I had been used to compliant terminals in Taiwan, so I wasn't prepared in March 2013 when the Frankfurt Marriott pulled the same routine with me. As I've explained before on this thread, I e-mailed the general manager and raised a huge fuss, but I was placated with Marriott Rewards points in excess of the DCC fee. I was also hypervigilant the entire time in Australia last month, but I only encountered DCC twice. The first was at a coffee shop inside a mall, which definitely caught me by surprised, and the second was at a duty free store at Brisbane Airport, which was expected. So it is good to stay watchful even if DCC isn't around every corner because it tends to rear its ugly head when you'd least expect it or after getting too complacent in a location where DCC isn't particularly common. For instance, if I hadn't been the one controlling the terminal at the coffee shop in Brisbane, the cashier would have mindlessly pressed ok resulting in a DCC charge.

I'm glad to know that your recent experiences with DCC reflect the way that it is supposed to work, but I still feel that too many merchants don't present a clear choice or make DCC the default unless you specifically ask for local currency.

DCC is still a ripoff, but I wonder if some of these places would have even bothered taking cards had DCC not been available. DCC allowing businesses to at least make up for the portion that their acquirers take per transaction could have made accepting cards worthwhile, at least in tourist areas. Thoughts?

Most merchant banks give such a poor amount of commission to the merchant on DCC I doubt it makes much of a difference.

paying cash is still better than DCC, especially since many cards have free ATM withdrawals.

People have stated this several times in the DCC threads, but I've never seen any evidence backing it up. Furthermore, if merchants really don't benefit, I don't think we'd encounter so many that are very deliberate (e.g. Marriott) in their approach to DCC.

Perhaps that's exactly the reason. Merchants where the average transaction is higher and there are lots of foreign customers would benefit more, and are therefore more deliberate. If the benefit to the merchant is small, places where the average transaction is lower don't find it worthwhile to bother.

Here are some numbers from an Elavon merchant brochure:

• Bankcard Volume $375k
• Convertible (DCC) Volume $101k
• Payment Processing Bill $11,150
• DCC Merchant Rebate $755