They wouldn't necessarily be the same AID but they'd be the same prefix and partial AID matching is used (Amex especially does this).

The network sets the certification standards as well as determine who is approved to certify. As far as I know, no US merchant accepts UnionPay chip cards. But the terminals deployed definitely CAN.

Now, why no one has... I have no clue. Maybe the liability isn't seen to outweigh the cost? I do know UnionPay standards are a challenge to meet.

It's likely that the costs to certify are greater than the benefits. I imagine few are using a UnionPay card stateside. With only one US issuer on the network, there isn't much incentive. That only leaves Chinese who do shopping here.

I remember you mentioning your classmates used their cards in Montana, but this isn't the common case from what I've seen. Most students end up getting a local bank account.

I have a Hong Kong unionpay card (from HSBC). About 50% of merchants in China doesn't accept it. They say they don't accept foreign cards. Maybe that's not the correct reason, but that's what they're saying.
I wonder if this card will have the same issue.

I heard that in China some acquirers charge merchants about 2% fee for accepting foreign issued CUP cards , while domestic cards are only 0.45% debit/0.55% credit. That may explains why some merchants don't want to accept such cards.

Fortunately, I haven't encounter this issue with my foreign CUP cards in most merchants.

50% is kind of high

I have 100% acceptance as far as I can remember from dining and hotels.

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I remember eons ago I had once merchant say that to me. But I think the guy was trying to avoid interchange altogether but had to explain away the card terminal.

Wonder if the cashback function works. I notice it prompts for this when entering pin and i know discover allows for cashback treated as a purchase when using their card.

The real question is whether rewards are earned. :o

Wow miss almost a year I need to catch up on things. So there's an US issued UP card now huh? Gotta check this one out.

Welcome back to FlyerTalk! :eek:

Yep, it's legit, and many of us have the card.

That's correct. It's using PULSE specifically: https://investorrelations.discover.c...s/default.aspx

I'm guessing this is different than JCB because CUP has many more debit cards than they do credit cards, at a ratio of about 9:1.

^

I tried the card at a number of different merchants that supported debit, and it behaved as expected after I entered the 6-digit PIN. I was even able to get a hot dog at Costco! Also, for the record, rewards were earned on the entire purchase amount of the debit transaction. :D

One caveat is that I did get a call from ICBC after I had used the card 5 or 6 times. I don't know if it's because they were all fallback transactions or because I hadn't used the card in awhile. While I haven't used the card in a few months, I was unable to find a merchant that supports PBOC transactions in the US.

Has anybody used this card in Mainland China yet? Im thinking about applying next week since I travel to Shenzhen every three months and most of the restaurants and shops there do not accept my Chase Sapphire Preferred card. I tried to open a China bank account to get a union pay debit card but that is really difficult to do now. I would like to use it for WeChat but I know they do not accept credit cards at this time or American based cards/accounts.

Please let me know if anybody used it in mainland china and haven't had an issue! I'm tired of carrying thousands of RMB with me at all times.

Also, does anybody know what the minimum credit score is to get approved for this credit card?

ICBC website says:

• $50 cash bonus when you make $1,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening *
• UnionPay card - widely accepted everywhere in China*************************
• EARN 1% cash back on every purchase *
• No foreign transaction fee and no liability on unauthorized purchases
• Rent your car with ICBC card and get auto rental collision damage waiver without paying extra §

Thank you!!!!!

There were a few reports either here or on another thread, but I didn't remember seeing any details about transactions. Rest assured it's a legitimate UnionPay network card, and you won't experience any issues you might have with a Discover card in Mainland China. As a bonus, it works in other UnionPay locations whereas Discover only works over the UnionPay network in Mainland China. Since getting the card, I only did a single test transaction in Hong Kong, but the transaction processed over the UnionPay network without any difficulties. You can see my post here.

Thanks for your reply. I did see your post. I can't find any information about Mainland China so Im just a littler worried. I use my Chase Signature Preferred card when im in Hong Kong but when I go to Mainland China I can only use it at certain restaurants or shopping malls. I think ill just apply and hopefully my credit is good enough for it. Thanks again!

Yeah, don't worry. It will work fine in Mainland China.

Used mine in Taiwan and China. They'll ask if its a foreign card and you have to say no (despite it actually being one). If you say yes they'll use a separate machine that won't work.

Exchange rate was decent I guess.

Same w/ HK Unionpay cards increasingly https://forum.hongkongcard.com/forumSE/show/23452

Looks like there is an Amazon $15 off $100 deal going on for this card with the UNINPAY62 code. The long and short is items sold by Amazon excluding Amazon-made hardware like the Kindle or Echo and digital goods: Merchants & Offers__UnionPay

Any reports? I recommend you try your CSR first and when that fails, then try the CUP card to see if there's any difference?

Also have you tried WeChat or Didi using this card?

Has anyone gotten this card to work with WeChat Pay?

Noticed that the chip now appears to work at my local grocery store. It can see that it's it's using a PBOC card chip and then runs it on the discover network. I was a little surprised that no PIN was required, but perhaps it was below a threshold for that.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...061c15bd54.png

Yes, this is a chip-and-signature card. The 6-digit PIN will only be at unattended terminals and for debit transactions. I will check at Safeway next weekend and report back. I tried a couple of places back in May, but none of them worked as a chipped transaction.

Speaking of debit transactions, I'm thinking that won't come up much in the US once UnionPay chip becomes more common. As noted in the receipt above, they used the UnionPay credit AID, not the common debit one.

The card worked at Costco in debit mode back in May. :D I don't use the card in the US since I have a better earn rate with other cards. Furthermore, since I couldn't get any EMV transactions to work - it was always fallback mode - it triggered a fraud alert from ICBC. They called me and wanted to verify that I had made all of those purchases. Perhaps that has changed with more places adding PBOC support.

Have you tried get cashback during debit transaction? If it works I wonder if it counts as cash advance or purchase.

My most recent data points are from May 2017, but I will say that back then all transactions, debit or credit, posted as purchases and received 1% cashback.

Did the debit transactions involve any cash back? I would completely expect the non-cashback ones to code as purchases regardless.

I'll leave the answer to that question as an exercise to the reader, but I suggest you read all of the text in post 187 carefully. ;)

Saw this ad today. Might be worthwhile for those who happen to be near Ontario, CA before March 31st depending on the specific brands/stores involved.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...0d259f156f.jpg

I believe this is no different than the standard coupon booklet for Simon Outlet Malls that they hand out at customer service. You can also receive it as a AAA member.

Might not matter for most in this thread, but it looks like Walmart supports UnionPay natively now (as in, doesn't go over Discover or Diners Club): https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Cre...e/td-p/5297550

Nice find. I forgot to go check out Safeway in January, but I will soon, along with Walmart. Regarding QuickPass, I wasn't able to get it to work in Hong Kong when percysmith and I tried a few different merchants back in early 2017. I don't use the card domestically due to its low rewards structure, but I was testing it out about a year ago. Due to the number of fallback transactions at the time, I promptly got a call from ICBC inquiring if I had the card in my possession. I even almost had the card rejected at a local merchant because of the need to do a fallback due to lack of PBOC support.

One would think they'd tone down the fraud monitoring for the US a bit so that fallback transactions in and of themselves aren't suspicious. Though maybe that's no longer necessary considering the increase in support?

Considering most people are probably using this card in China where PBOC is supported, I would tend to think that fallback transactions would be viewed with more scrutiny.

Normally I'd agree, but UnionPay has to know that PBOC acceptance in the US isn't all that great. You'd think they'd provide some guidance to issuers to ensure a good customer experience insomuch as possible. Of course, such guidance might not actually be mandatory for issuers to follow. :p

I agree. Discover has no issues with all the fallback transactions abroad because they know that Discover's EMV acceptance is poor internationally.

UnionPay and Mainland Chinese issuers might know this, but I still maintain that most people are using this card in Mainland China where the PBOC protocol would be widely supported. It doesn't even need to be the issuer blocking transactions. Merchants who realize they might be liable for fallback transactions now could opt to decline a chipped card when the chip fails.

As expected, Walmart worked with PBOC without a PIN or signature:

http://i.imgur.com/KuiB96Im.png

It's interesting that the receipt still says DISCV TEND. I then went to my local Safeway where the chip card failed to read. I swiped the card, was prompted for the PIN, and asked if I wanted cash back. This transaction went through as a debit purchase. I'm drawing from my memory, but I remember being able to press cancel and run over the Discover network as well.

Anyone else finding it harder to use this card with the rise of wechat pay and alipay? Not just do some places not even take credit cards any more but new terminals designed for qr codes that just happen to have cc swipe too don't work reliably.

Hui lau shan in shenzhen card didn't work, but then again neither did a visa. Had to resort to wechat pay in the end as I had no cash.