Nope. Mop is the legal tender, pegged at mop103 to hkd100. All merchants are supposed to bill by that, even tho hkd is (and merchants prefer) hkd cash payment at 1:1 for obvious reasons.

Because mop is the legal tender, card terminals bill that as local currency without exception (not sure if true for gambling advances inside casino, never tried that)

Regulators are not as strong there (and dare I blame them for being closer to the motherland than us?) DCC is rife.

Thanks for the explanation, it's some time ago I was in Macao last (3 years imho) so my knowledge, especially about DCC, is a bit outdated. I remember they also preferred getting paid in HK$, and Casino gambling areas were (and most certainly still are) 100% HK$ only.

I guess if your own currency is just 3% lower, and you happily accept "foreign" cash at 1:1 rate, lots of HK people won't even bother to change money but just use their local one as exchange would eat up parts anyway plus then they would get stuck with leftovers. With credit cards, and especially DCC, it's a different matter, though, obviously.

If coming from HK and dining/shopping at chain establishments it is definitely advantageous to use cards.

And (a bit Quisling at this) using Unionpay in particular - low rates (almost at the peg - 0.971), no DCC, good acceptance and decent rewards (1 mile per $6 paid)

It's been about three years since we've been there too, but we're ready to go back in September:


http://i.imgur.com/MDHpd0Rm.jpg

:D:D:D

I do remember for cash transactions being able to request change in HKD without a problem. The two or three times we took a taxi they were happy to oblige, and I remember some fast food places giving change in both Patacas and HKD.

I see that the Venetian is still pulling the DCC scam. :td: What I can do if we stay there this time around is be upfront about being billed in Patacas and settling the bill in Patacas. Back in July 2011 I was ignorant of DCC, and I didn't know I had been hit until after I had gotten back home. This was the first place where I got hit involuntarily with DCC. I always knew paying in local currency was best, but I had always been given the quote slip in Taiwan. I thought it had something to do with the MOP:HKD exchange rate when I was seeing an amount 3% higher than what it ought to have been. On an 830 USD hotel bill that was a nice $25 profit they made on me. I bet they haven't changed their system in three years, but I definitely wasn't asked if I wanted to be billed in USD.

I don't know why DCC seems to be rampant in Taiwan because I don't see many tourists there even in Taipei. I get it in HK, Macau, or even Mainland China where you have a lot of foreign currency cards, but I'm wondering how this gets to be a problem. Perhaps the acquirers are the ones pushing DCC to the machines as evidenced by certain POS terminals not even allowing a merchant who's willing to work with the customer to disable DCC?

(At least the carbon one) I thought these slips were banned after 2011:

No tick box (outside of Europe), "no commission" when this is blatantly untrue (the currency peg means there is no rate but 0.971...the slip rate is 0.997)

http://www.hongkongcard.com/webedito...4930_14815.jpg

In some cases this may be true http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/china...l#post16343265 .

But in places we don't go to often (like Venetian) we don't know which is the real case - a helpless merchant or a lying merchant.

I bet the acquirer ends up taking the largest cut here, and it's the nearly perfect crime. The bulk of customers won't realize they've been cheated, and the few in the know can usually get out of DCC. Then you have cases where staff haven't been trained, POS terminals are locked, or things are setup in a way where a customer is forced into DCC. In this case the customer disputes the transaction, and the risk is on the merchant if a Reason Code 76 chargeback results. Now, this might have the effect of the merchant having a little chat with the acquirer and training staff, but that is after the fact.

I'd suspect in a lot of these cases the acquirers steer the payment terminals toward DCC such that disabling it is extremely unintuitive or the non-preferred option. It's just like the ANZ terminal in Brisbane at the coffee shop. The cashier was saying, "Oh. Press OK." The terminal was saying, "Accept exchange 1.03566 AUD?" or something similarly esoteric. If I hadn't had the terminal in my possession we would have had a problem because the cashier would have repeatedly pressed OK. I had to pause for 10 seconds to make sure I pressed the correct button (cancel) because that move was critical to generating the DCC free slip.

I have always had this issue in mainland Europe, however my recent trip to Lithuania showed that some places are still untouched - DCC in sight!

I've also spent the morning educating colleagues in how to avoid Ryanair's sky high DCC... How they get away with such a high mark up is unbelievable.

Re Majuki - also it's an effective piece of social engineering.

Turns out the hubby of the hongkongcard.comer actually agreed to DCC in the Chevignon case.

For the uninitiated it's asking "do 1,109 x (100/103) x (1+your bank foreign currency conversion charge" in your head in 5 seconds.

(Though I don't know what is going through the head of that hubby, for MOP1,109 = HKD1,109.09 (MOP/HKD > 1) is definitely a stinker of a deal.

That's unfortunate. I don't know why people think it's a good deal, especially with a known exchange rate between MOP and HKD. :(

At least you know it has something to do with the exchange rate. The cashier has to press cancel against "Print next receipt?" in order to get out of Global Payments Maldives DCC.

I can answer the question in general. Because they're lazy. Americans especially don't have a clue about currencies and exchange rates and the like (not saying this is an exclusive American trait but they seem to be the most ignorant).

They buy something and they're told it costs €200. They have no clue so ask how much is that in real money or maybe they do say how much is that in American money. Today, of course, every last smart phone (even the old pre smartphone mobiles) has a calculator and even has a currency exchange key but they're too lazy to use that. Now picture going into the same shop and the clerk telling you that they can write the charge up in dollars if you wish and it is whatever in dollars. Maybe they ask which is better. Or the clerk starts throwing out the lies how you can lock in the exchange rate by doing it now or perhaps the clerk says nothing and presents you with a dcc'd sales draft to sign and if you start asking tells you it's a great rate and to compare it with the bank rates in the windows (of course we know the bank rates in the window are for cash and far far worse than the rate the cc companhy will give even if you're moronic enough to use a cc with the asinine should be illegal 3% ftf) or they may tell you the rate in your currency is shown for your convenience and is an approximation and you're really being charged in euro or it's done automatically by the terminal and they have no control over it (an advantage of course perhaps of chip and pin if you are asked for your pin before the fatefaul moment the exchange is done by the terminal) or sorry once it's done the transaction can not be undone (we've discussed that right here just in the last few posts). Or another is this will avoid the credit card foreign currency exchange fee of the naughty credit card company. I've even seen in some Caribean countries the lie that the government requires all purchases be converted to US dollars for Americans. Whether the cashier believes any of this is moot, those are the lies they're trained to tell.

So ultimately knowing how naive many travelers are, what do you think is going to happen? That's what keeps dcc going. (BTW you might find interesting some of the brochures for merchants outlining the advantages of dcc and of how their customers love to be quoted the price in a currency they understand!)

I will say two things one time and stop before I send this thread down a tangent that will earn a one-way ticket into OMNI/PR territory. First, you interject insistently that credit card surcharges, foreign transaction fees, etc. should be illegal, yet you freely have admitted to charging surcharges to your own customers. Second, I don't know what it is with you and America bashing. DCC is a problem that affects more than just Americans using their cards overseas. Yes, we've all seen the ugly American stereotype abroad, but the obnoxious tourist can be different nationalities depending on the location.

When you witness a tourist confused about the exchange rate, do you make an attempt to educate that person, or do you just engage in a moment of schadenfreude knowing that the tourist is about to be ripped off with DCC (plus likely a 3% FTF card)? Truthfully, I've never seen a DCC transaction where the person was demanding to pay in "real money". In all of the cases I've seen, the DCC happens without the customer realizing it, and the merchant doesn't say anything. Before I got educated on what DCC was, I was unknowingly hit a couple of times. In none of those instances did the staff at the hotel indicate that DCC was happening, and I didn't realize that I had been billed USD at an extremely unfavorable exchange rate (luckily on a 0% FTF card).

Furthermore, it's instinctive to retreat to something you know, so when asked the question, "Do you want to use EUR or USD?" people will usually reply, "Oh... USD!" But this is no different than the post from the other day about the person selecting HKD over MOP. It's just an issue of familiarity and what the instinctive reaction from the person will be. Other people would be surprised that it's an option. "You mean I can pay in <issued card currency>?" The cashier is just likely to respond, "Yes." I have never, not once, heard a merchant extoll the supposed benefits of DCC. In contrast, the only time that I've heard the lies start is when a customer in the know is attempting to get out of a forced DCC situation.

When you witness these situations in the wild, it is a perfect opportunity to educate the person. Give the person access to the tools to get the current exchange rates. Tell the person that it's always better to pay in the local currency because the credit card will get the best exchange rate. Avoid letting the merchant say they can offer you a known exchange rate upfront because it's far worse than what you'd get from Visa/MC. Finally, if the person is using a card with a FTF, let that person know of options for cards without FTF. Sure, some people might not want the help or advice, but in my experience most have said, "Thanks for the information. I didn't know that before!"

This is true. If the terminal had said, "Print next receipt?" I would have pressed OK. :(

My understanding of Macau vs HK is more like a English culture vs Latino culture. We all know what the situations are in London and Paris. If you take a black taxi in London, enjoyed the ride and the professional service provided by the driver, arrived at St Pancres, which is a beautiful and clean train terminal, board a Eurostar, and 2 hours later, you arrive at Gare du Nord, a much less clean terminal than St Pancres, walk out, see unorganized taxi stand outside, and enjoy some fierce driving in the chaotic street of Paris, and maybe at the destination you have to haggle with the driver a bit...

Although HK is not as clean and organized as London, I would say the difference between HK/Macau is quite similar to London/Paris. HK and Macau even have a 2-hour water in between, too...

Last time I was in Macau, I couldn't find bus stations, as I did not in Paris this time...