Some people, believe it or not, want DCC because for some idiotic reason they want to get everything priced in their home currency.

That's been the official value proposition from the inception of dcc, which has been persistently pushed through the entire value chain, so it's not surprising that people take the bait.

I must have missed that. Visa is the worst of those three on average. (See Forex discussion.)

We had some informal discussion about it on this thread about a year ago. There was no rigor around our experiment other than transactions using AmEx in a similar time period/posting date than Visa/MC seemed to use a slightly more unfavorable rate. All of these data points were within the margin of error of ±1% and all were much better than any DCC offered.

Could it be that many of these people are on business so aren't footing the cost themselves?

About a year ago there were hardly any 0% FTF Amex cards, so I guess data points would have been thin on the ground. ±1% is huge, when we're talking about MC being at the mid-rate, Visa being 0.4% (2014) to 0.7% (2015) above and Amex being somewhere between MC and Visa.

Any possibility that the current world economic situation's making Visa's forex rate choices worse? That thread also mentioned that Visa/MC are near equivalent in countries whose currencies seem to be tightly controlled (e.g. China).

Anything is possible, but I assume Visa's choices are to make more money and screw over customers, just like DCC.

Making blanket statements about "use issuer X" is a poor idea; the discrepancy between rates differs significantly depending on your currency. Sometime after my last trips to Japan and India, I did research and discovered that V was better in Japan and MC was (.1%) better in India. A later trip, V was better in India than MC. I think on average it all evens out in the wash, but if your international travel is restricted to one country that's always better, then obviously you should always care about that.

My figures come from over 100 transactions across 8 currencies including some of the most commonly used non-US currencies, GBP, EUR and AUD. Others in that thread have reported similar results. If you know exceptions, by all means point them out.

It does not "even out in the wash". Better to look up Visa's rates on their web site and compare to interbank rates on xe.com or oanda.com yourself rather than making such a ludicrous claim. On my data, Visa is worse and very consistently so. Worse mean. Worse maximum. Worse minimum. In transactions with identical date and currency, pr(Visa betters MC by >0.2%) = 0 while pr(MC betters Visa by >0.2%) is over 90%.

That is definitely a contributing factor. If I give my employer a DCC receipt and the amount is in GBP, I get refunded the exact amount in GBP. If I give my employer a receipt in any other currency, I get refunded in GBP at some dodgy* exchange rate my employer has created.

My credit card doesn't have one, but my employer doesn't refund non-sterling fees charged by banks, so going DCC is actually better for most people at my company.

* = After querying this with our finance people, it is apparently calculated as the average interbank exchange rate for every day in the previous month, i.e. nothing like the rate you actually paid.

In my former job, we were lucky enough to have a finance department that was sane. Whenever we had expenses in a foreign currency (roughly 95% of all our expenses) we got refunded on a very generous rate, usually being even around 1% better than what the credit card charge was. So obviously, I was always very willing to pay for the whole group when eating out :D

Are you not able to enter the amount actually charged to your card on your expenses claim? Along the lines of "ABC Hotel, invoice amount EUR 130, amount charged to my Visa 1234 GBP 96.37".

If not, I can see the attraction of DCC for anyone who is, quite reasonably, more concerned about not being out of pocket than about their employer not being out of pocket.

I'm off to Spain next month - how bad can I expect things there? Do I need to state "Euros!" at every transaction?

Spain isn't terrible... but you do need to get in the habit whenever traveling to say the local currency. I do it every time I hand over my credit card wherever I am.

That's basically what I did starting with my third day there.

I quickly learned that on some credit card terminals the interface is counter-intuitive and probably intentionally confusing in order to maximize profits for the banks and possibly the merchants. On that particular screen, the sales clerk/waiter has to touch the red button to decline the dollars option (the green button is to proceed in dollars).

I specifically instructed that if given a choice on the screen to proceed in US$, I wanted the transaction to be processed in Euros.

I would like to say that after the AMEX SPG card did away with the FTF, I've been using it like crazy both in China and Japan, and I've racked much more SPG points than before and I don't really care about other cards offering me 2% on general purchases anymore, since SPG points are valuable.
It is really a peace of mind for me and it is absolutely DCC-free. Everyone should try it.
On a side note, on a Shinkansen Kiosk at Osaka Station, I actually used my SPG Business card successfully in purchasing tickets, while all my other cards including the Chip-and-PIN A+ were rejected by the machine. I couldn't remember whether I've set up a PIN for my AMEX SPG Business, but I just used my common PIN and it was actually accepted (Chip-and-PIN ready? I don't know) and the charge shows up on AMEX as a purchase, not a cash advance.
Hope this helps.

Went to Ikea (Shanghai Hongqiao) last week, used CSP twice.

1. Cafeteria on 2nd floor
-I said nothing to the cashier when handing her the card
-The lady charged in RMB.
-No DCC or option for USD.

Resulting transaction on CSP site: No issues, no "extra" hidden charges.

2. Merchandise purchase on 1st floor.
-I said nothing to the cashier when handing her the card
-I was in a credit card only queue
-printed out a rmb or usd for me to mark and sign
-i said in a panic, i wanted RMB! She said, "then mark it" on the slip
-I did so and but was a little paranoid - even though the final receipt printed as RMB.

Resulting transaction on CSP site: I was charged a whopping 5% higher than expected! I was pissed off - mostly at myself because I read about it and knew about it, and still signed the slip. Anyway, I was about to open up a dispute with chase over this but the charge was only still pending, so I waited for it to post before officially disputing it. Oddly enough, the cafeteria charge posted in 2 days. This one however, posted in 5 days...even though they were on the same day. So anyway, to my surprise, the final posted charge actually changed and was in the correct RMB amount, no extra!

So, now I'm a little confused, because I read that regardless of what you pick, you'll be charged at the DCC rate. I guess it depends on the POS system? I'm not sure what one Ikea uses though, my receipt doesn't show any of that.

What you see as pending is what Ikea asked for authorization. The system evidently asks for authorization of the higher DCC-ed amount, but submits the actual charge.

Hello, milksteak. Welcome to FlyerTalk, and thank you for sharing your DCC experiences! As you've discovered, the pending amount depends on the POS system. Usually, it's been my experience that the DCC amount shows in the pending activity. As long as the final receipt/courtesy shows an indication of local currency, you're usually good. Be cautious when there are check boxes to ensure that your choice was actually respected. You can see an example at Disneyland HK here. Some places, notably China and India, have a terrible record when it comes to DCC. By the time you've seen the verbiage it's too late.

Hi milksteak

What you experienced is normal, but of course scary nonetheless. In China, usually the authorization is for the DCCed amount, and you can only know after it is posted.

Technically, all transactions in China can be DCC free. But some of them actually requires some actions before the transactions are logged into the payment systems (meaning the fake options on the slips are pure lies), while others are designed to be operable but neglected by the cashiers (as they have to give some inputs to the payment systems to choose the non-DCC currency, and the systems always choose the DCC one if no inputs are made to maximize profit).

In Shanghai, people follow the rules much better than people in Beijing. I've encountered much fewer forced-DCC instances there. Some places in Shanghai even don't have the DCC option at all, using POS directly linked to the UnionPay system without any evil tampering from the greedy banks.

In Beijing, if you see the "choices" on your slip, you are doomed already.

Hi zyxlsy, I thought there were some terminals that couldn't be defeated in Mainland China (or even HK/Macau)? Even if you specify RMB, have no language barrier, and have a cooperative cashier there is still a problem.

How are you Majuki? It's been long.

My experience is that almost every terminal is controllable. The problem is knowing how to control them.

For example, there was this one time with Global Payment in HK, I was presented with choices on the first carbon-copy slip on which I need to sign. Through my request, the cashier printed out a second slip confirming the currency of my choosing. This is actually the correct step that it's a two-step thing. But what if the cashier forgets to do the input? That's where the semi-forced DCC would happen because without a explicit opt-out input, the default is DCC.

In China, things are a little bit different that the opt-out mostly cannot be done afterwards, and you have to mostly use the "cancel button" trick to tell the terminal that you don't want DCC. However, some terminal here are actually designed to be handling currency selections afterwards. There might be passwords and confusing prompts which would make it very hard for not-trained-so-well employees to actually find these features but they are there anyway. But as I said, the majority of them need pre-emptive actions in order to defeat DCC.

My guess would be 90% of forced-DCC in China is from machines which need pre-emptive actions, 9% from machines with DCC opt-out features that are hidden so well, and 1% from totally insane machines with hard-wired DCC functions but I've not seen any here yet (but one can never say they don't exist).

I've been doing well. I've been stuck stateside since January, so no opportunity to check for DCC other than my sister-in-law's trip here in February - very few DCC hits in the US - and my in-laws visiting in April (no DCC encountered but very few data points with their card).

I know of the cancel trick, but that didn't work when percysmith and I tried at Greyhound Cafe last year. So, in 90% of cases if I say local currency in China I will be alright? For some reason, I thought the problem was much more widespread. I'll definitely keep my Discover at the ready to use instead.

I didn't know it was so widespread. Even though the UK gets a lot of Eurozone cards most machines are set to GBP only. And even if they have the other option since you actually insert the card into the machine and make the transaction, you control what happens.

I'd hate to have someone "help" me by giving me a crappy exchange rate with DCC. I wonder which eastern countries predominantly do DCC, I plan to go to Japan and I wonder what they do there.

I generally have to go out of my way to find DCC in Japan. And even if I do the cashiers give quote slip and respectfully wait before proceeding.

No, you won't be OK if just saying "local currency please". Almost all of the machines in China need the "cancel trick" and you have to act fast, usually within 3 seconds from when card is swiped or when the amount is entered. Meanwhile, almost all of the cashiers in China don't know about this DCC stuff and they won't understand how to disable them. You the customer needs to know the cancel trick, unfortunately... Even if the machine can be defeated, the cashiers might not let you do anything to the machine for the fear of punishment from the management (as non-DCC transactions do incur more fees).

What I said is that for the forced-DCC machines, 90% needs cancel trick, and so forth. Non-compliant machines (those don't show clearly what is going on and those don't give you options) are like 100% here in China. Nowhere is safe here...

Some places even have a separate machine for foreign cards (we all can guess why). Usually these machines are from 交行.

Of course, if you go to Ritz Carlton or Westin, they definitely know how to disable DCC so no problem there~

Regarding the Greyhound Café thing, I do believe that machine needs post-transaction inputs like those Global Payment machines do. The owner however doesn't know how to do that, or the business providing the machine to that owner doesn't want the owner to know how to do. Kind of hard for me to believe there is a hard-wired-to-the-bone DCC-forcing machine in HK, not China. I'll say 99% of the chance the DCC-disabling feature is hidden somewhere in that machine, very deeply hidden!

My experience in London and Paris is really good. Only did I encounter DCC at Fortrum and Mason, and I was offered a choice on the keypad with clear instructions.

Don't worry about Japan. As percysmith said, you do need to go VERY out of the way to find a DCC there. Japan is not famous for this kind of nefarious business practices at all. I've spent half a month in Kansai area last month living mostly on credit cards and encountered none DCC.

Only one place hit me with DCC in London, the Heathrow Airport Marriott. This time I'm prepared for it. I will watch any forms like a hawk before I sign, deface anything about the exchange rate, and ultimately pursue a chargeback if required.

The posts about Greyhound Cafe are here and here. There was an Opt setting, which might have been the key, but there was no corresponding button. We seemed to have a helpful manager, and there was no language barrier. Pushing cancel during the ENQUIRY stage had no effect.

I guess I'm still in trouble in Mainland China since I can only speak a few phrases of Mandarin. I might as well brush up on my banking/DCC terms as well. In contrast, Taiwan is well behaved when it comes to DCC, so I've never had to worry.

Update on Ryanair: they have a new (well, Beta) website!

DCC is very obvious on the new site and very easy to opt out.
http://s21.postimg.cc/l58nfq3yf/image.png

To give an idea of the markup, my card was charged £12.10 for this PLN69.30 transaction. Ryanair's rate was £12.80.

For those without fee free cards, wishing to take advance of the "Ryanair journeys originating in the UK but return flight cheaper to book as a single in the destination currency" issue, this could be worth opting into as some UK cards charge a fixed fee plus a percentage.

Yes, UK debit card FTFs are insane. My Lloyd's one is £1 + 3%. On a £20 transaction (say, a meal for two at a decent restaurant) that's a shocking 8%! DCC is the better deal, actually.

But doesn't UK cards also incur a FTF if processed in GBP outside of UK?

PITA for us in HK, I started a thread tracking online merchants charging HKD outside HK http://www.hongkongcard.com/forum/fo...p?id=11968&p=1

(In HK the term Foreign Transaction Fee is not used; the terminology is not uniform (Citi HK even calls their FTF a DCC fee) but I used "Cross-Border Fee" after the first bank who started applying the fee in a big way called it that)

I've been mainly using dollar blue cash in Argentina, but I've done some cross border day trips to Chile and Brazil where there were some small entry fee or a meal to be paid and I carded those - no DCC despite the obvious tourist orientation of those locations. I also carded my prepaid data card at EZE also without DCC.

Saw this option on the credit card screen at a Mango in Paris.

Generally no, the term the banks use is non-sterling transaction fee.

Alliekat: oh okay. Funny how UK banks are so conservative on fees viz-a-viz US and HK.

In other news, DCC chargeback in Singapore: can be done but PITA http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/singa...l#post25604402

My hypothesis wrt the "cancel trick"
 

It's no secret that opting out of dcc in China (including HK) often requires --counter intuitively-- pressing the "cancel" button within a narrow window at some point during the process

Based on my recent observances of boc and HSBC pos machines, here's what I think is really going on:

-there usually IS a dcc selection step
-on intuitive pos machines, you choose 1 for card currency and 2 for local currency
-but, in the case of boc, HSBC, 交行, etc...simply replace 1 with the "enter" button and 2 with the "cancel" button
-to put it another way, during this step the "cancel" button functions EXACTLY the same way as the 2 button on other pos machines
*I sent percysmith a pic of a boc pos machine that makes this semi clear (if you study the still photo in detail)

Key point (based on this hypothesis) is that the "cancel" button relinquishes its cancel function during this step.
..and, waitresses have no clue about such (they will always press the "enter" button for you).

My advice:
-if you get hit with DCC (in China), void the transaction
*lengthy explanation as to why is not a good idea
-redo it a second time with yourself in the driver's seat
-you WILL win if you focus

I think this is the "intuitive" DCC terminal moondog mentioned:

http://m.hongkongcard.com/webeditor/..._674653811.jpg (I'll reduce the size of this when I get back to HK and link this photo on this post directly)

I don't agree with much of moondog's hypthesis:

1. The four banks are not as corrobated as moondog makes out. Not to mention there are second-tier banks such as Bankcomm and foreign banks such as HSBC who are also offenders. In one bank (or few) the Enter/Cancel is all that's requires. I don't see why that is the opt-out for all of them (why can't it be answering "no" to "Print Next Slip?" as in the Maldives?)

2. I think in the PRC all terminals have an opt-out just in case the acquirer is asked to demonstrate an opt-out exists before the PBOC. Except triggering that opt-put is akin to triggering the test mode on a Volkswagen diesel in a EPA test lab - once back in the wild the terminals do their normal non-compliant thing again.

3. Moondog talks about the focusing of the mechanics of the DCC but I posit the card charging workflow of most PRC merchants is part of the "mechanics" facilitating DCC non-compliance - in Australia, Italy and EU in general (I hope to be able to report on Canada next year), the SOP is for terminals are brought to the customer because of Chip and PIN. This is also done in PRC for Unionpay cards (which traditionally required a PIN). But for V/M in PRC my experience is non-detachable terminal since only a signature is required. So there is much reduced scope to play our whack-a-mole or Mastermind games.

3A. Furthermore there is very limited cooperation we can seek from PRC cashiers/service staff (especially tourists not resident expats) - they will just insist on the "tick RMB and you will be charged in RMB" or its Putonhua translation.

4. Certain acquirers in HK (Global Payments seems to be the most profligate given the Coyote and Greyhound cases I've been involved in) don't even have to pretend to be compliant because they fall into a regulatory black hole - the HKMA doesn't cover non-banks. Visa and (to a slightly lesser extent) MC don't do much about non-compliance (with regard to the purported BOC instructions Visa /dev/nulled me whereas MC is treating more or less like an individual exception case) so they do not seem to see the need for an opt out switch at all no matter how obscure.

4A. I don't have direct evidence for this but I posit the same for Macau for the same reasons as HK.

After more than 2 months in Denmark, I am happy to report that the DCC disease is virtually non-existant here. I've never been prompted for DCC anywhere, even at the major department stores in the city centre (e.g. Illum, Magasin du Nord), brand name stores and shops of varying sizes.

The only case of it I encountered was a Euronet ATM offering DCC. All other major bank ATMs (e.g. Danske Bank, Nordea, etc.) have never prompted me for DCC.

Of course, the nasty surprise here is that some places charge extra for using foreign cards, while not charging extra for Danish debit cards. This happens frequently at the discount supermarkets (1.8-2.8%). What shocked me was how many high-end restaurants (e.g. 2 Michelin starred) charge such fees as well (Geranium, Studio and AOC all asked for a foreign card fee.) :td:

I noticed the same. Most stores do not make it clear what you will be charged until you have put the card into the chip and PIN device. There tend to be different fees for domestic Visa/MasterCard than foreign cards. Dankort always seems to be free to use.

Interestingly none of the fast food chains appear to have a surcharge.

Also, I noticed Diners Club does not charge this fee; at least it didn't when I went to Tivoli. Of course while I don't have a Diners Club, outside the USA, discover is diners club. I think this is true in general but didn't use it anywhere else as I was only in Copenhagen overnight one day waiting for a Baltic cruise.

Tivoli probably has the best signage at the door explaining their CC charges, except I was just using my CPH Card to enter. If the charge is 2.5% and I get 1.5% back, it's about the same as 1% ATM spread (on my Ally no-fee). It's all about your cash budgeting--whether you need to get rid of cash or trying to avoid another trip to the ATM.