GarlicFlyer

I used Discover in China.

HBKFan75

Don't know about China, but I had exactly zero issues with my Discover card in Japan. They'd swipe it and it'd come up as JCB. Of course, I was only in Tokyo and not anywhere off the beaten path.

photaco

I guess you didn't try using your card at some of the ubiquitous merchants these guys did

sthubbar

As someone who has been living in China since 2006, here is my take on the CC situation.

- Any US credit cards will have some issues
- Cards will often be rejected on principal because "We don't accept foreign cards"
- Discover is most widely accepted as it is on same network as UnionPay EXCEPT
a) You will still receive the "We don't accept foreign cards" objection even if it does work
b) The card doesn't actually bear the UnionPay logo so the merchants won't necessarily believe your word or any piece of paper you hand them
- For Visa/MC be aware of DCC which can add 3% - 4% to the price

If you're not concerned about rewards/miles then best choice is to open a local bank account and use the bank card.

jamar

Personal experience, coming and going:

Living in Shanghai when in China, my AA Barclaycard has seen quite a bit of use. Most of the places I shop at take it fine, which may say something about my shopping/dining habits.

A lot of the smaller places I shop at, though, have trouble even with my Discover card. Quite a few "Restricted card" or "BIN Restricted" errors even when I do convince the merchant to swipe the card, always with smaller acquirers (easy way to tell: if the terminal shows a small local acquirer's logo instead of the word "UnionPay" in Chinese, it's probably not going to like my Discover card). This is a real problem, and I think it needs to be fixed before the chip issue.

I also have an ICBC credit card (issued in China). It doesn't have much in the way of rewards. Not even worth talking about. I keep it because of the multi-currency Visa card attached to the main UnionPay card and because it's my only unsecured Chinese credit card.

Note: I've noticed that Chinese credit cards are benefit-focused rather than reward-focused, so you might want to look for a credit card that provides you with freebies and discounts for things you'd normally do rather than focus on earning miles and such.

upnorth

No doubt most smallmAchines establishments where you may not find tourists, the person accpeti g payment willMylarmount tell you we do not accept foreign cards because it does not work. I never accept that and insist I want to try. My Discover with Chip NEVER worked at any McDonald's in Shanghai. It did work at some businesses. When swiped it gave a message in Chinese to insert chip. When chip is inserted it gives error message no entry or blank data. Discover card acceptance is much better than Visa/Mastercard but still very low. That is the problem with trade agreements and WTO memberships. The west provides filmmaker access, developing nations and Japan provide restricted access. In the end, while sch policies might benefit in preserving home grown finance companies, the nation earns less in tourist dollars.

upnorth

Believe me, that is a total myth. I am a frequent business traveller to China. In my this month's visit to China I had a UNFCU Visa Chip and Pin card. It is of very little use, unless you go to western tourist frequented restaurants or at large hotels.
Union Pay has totally cut out Visa and Mastercard from their network. Discover used to work on many Union Pay terminals. Since the upgrade to chip, Discover cards have limited acceptability at Union Pay terminals. This is a problem Discover card company needs to sort out. Currently your best bet is to withdraw loads of cash and keep that as a backup to your chip Discover card, if you wish to dine at Chinese restaurants. I suspect not having a pin is also causing problems to Discover cards with Chip.

PlyrStar93

The UnionPay terminals should be able to process Discover cards, but it appears they first need to have Discover's AID loaded to be able to run a Discover card by chip.
The McDonald's in Beijing takes my Discover EMV card fine, but I have to first insert the card, get the error message (I've seen "候选列表空", though didn't notice the English below that), and swipe the card (when it tells you to swipe or cancel). Of course, same as other places, the chip will not work, just let it go back to mag stripe. As long as you are able to fall back, you should be fine, but the steps you need to do can be PITA sometimes.

Has Shanghai McDonald's disabled fall back transactions? I have seen news about some locations no longer accept fall back, so that could be a problem.

For the BIN issue, it seems that several small acquirers have blocked Discover's BIN due to fraud concerns (back a while ago criminals used forged Discover cards to obtain large amount of cash from POS they applied for). There has also been rumors on the Chinese Internet claiming "cards beginning in 6011 are fake cards" or something, leaving impression in some merchants that the funds will not be credited to their accounts (actually it seems the funds will be credited slower than UnionPay cards, especially if transaction occurs in weekends). My Discover card has not been rejected or blocked by POS yet; once I pulled out the card and the cashier was finding the it weird and doubted if the card can be processed, though.

Another issue is that the POS has to connect to UnionPay network, not Alipay or something that directly connect to a bunch of banks.


Visa and MasterCard can be used at several high end establishments, including large hotels, department stores, famous restaurants and many other places that non-Chinese citizens may visit. Still, it is very very limited compared to UnionPay. I am waiting to see if V/MC will see much better acceptance rate beginning June 1st when non-UnionPay networks can apply to begin their processing services. Just don't expect Visa or MasterCard can be used like UnionPay once June 1st comes, as their applications may have to take quite a while to be approved, and then the networks have to be built up and merchants have to choose to accept cards issued in these networks.

moondog

+1. The days of Discover being universally accepted at Union Pay terminals are temporarily over (I watch my boss fight this battle on a daily basis; his hit rate is about 80%, but the other 20% of the time, one of us ends up using cash).

My strategy is a combination of cash and Chinese bank cards. I don't care so much about points these days, but churning US cards remotely is always an option for the die hards.

HBKFan75

You're right, I didn't. Always good to have a backup Visa card with no FTF for situations like those, of course.

hiima

I was going to say discover as it is usable anywhere that across union pay, but I guess after chip implementation, it doesn't work so well. Last I was in China was 2012. Visa and MC is basically useless there unless you're going to touristy places or high end places.

nicholasli6

I was in china around April, my chip discover card worked in the first two days as a swipe card, then it was blocked. On the third day, I swiped the card, then terminal prompted insert,I then inserted the card, it said swipe, then I swiped, it said declined. Later I found out chinese chip cards use chinese specific Unionpay algorithm to code, that standard has been evolved to the 3rd gen, and it is not compatible with EMV standard.
I also used Discover chip card in south korea, the same thing happened, swipe-insert-swipe-declined.
i donot know it is a discover chip issue or not, but if you want use your card in china, I guess you can get a non-chip card, that's what I gonna do. I wil be going to china soon in couple months to try the non chip card.
Best option: get a fidelity cash management debit card or schwab checking debit card.

patrick.barnes

I've never seen anywhere in Japan that took JCB but not V/MC/AX.

China might be a different matter.

The JCB Marukai claims a 1.1% FTF but it's not applied in practice.

TheChallenge

I can say that the Marukai JCB Card works at places that only accept UnionPay in Hong Kong & Macau. I don't know if that holds true for Mainland China though.

photaco

That's interesting, as it probably has nothing to do with Discover then. They are careful to say Discover can be used at UnionPay merchants in mainland China, though Hong Kong & Macau do not show up as countries at all, whereas Taiwan is listed as Diners Club only.

As for Discover-at-JCB in Japan, they say "anywhere you see the Discover acceptance mark and at almost all locations you see the JCB acceptance mark" (emphasis mine) though plenty of travelers have determined "almost all" to be a stretch.