I probably deserve this, but I think I got hit by DCC. I got into a discussion with the acting manager at the Sheraton in Australia. I handed him my credit card. I wasn't paying attention and I let him operated the terminal. There's a difference of about US$7 between the market rate and what I see on my Citi account. I'm still in Sydney right now, but not sure if there is anything that can be done. OMG, so stupid of me not to ask for the terminal...

Did you remember to account for the CC surcharge that typical in Australia (~2%)?

OMG! You're right! I totally forgot about that. I just quickly checked the math and there's roughly a 1.5% difference between market rate and what's on my Citi account. I think Marriott does have a warning on their website about a surcharge.

Doesn't MC have a currency calculator online?

I think I might have learned a valuable lesson here. No matter how good of a conversation I have with anyone, I need to operate the terminal!

Yes, this is a surcharge that is almost universal at hotels in Australia these days. DCC would be a more noticeable discrepancy ~4-6% higher (on top of the surcharge btw).

PayPal has some upcoming changes to their Terms of Service that indicate that the DCC spread is increasing to 4%:

This particular change will take effect on November 9, 2020. Hopefully no one here is specifically opting into DCC, but it might be a good idea to re-verify your conversion settings prior to that date.

Obscene. Anything PayPal is basically useless given their Kafkaesque compliance/security but when it comes to currency conversion they take the prize for fleecers of the century.

I have had to be very meticulous.... I already am meticulous but from what I saw, adjusting those settings can't be done for all transactions... you have to do it each time. At least using my American PayPal account from Europe.

What is up with Australia and NZ in this regard? I always found it super tacky to be at a 5-star hotel that couldn't absorb the 1.5% credit card fee...

Been to Aus/NZ many times, last time in November and I remember confronting Amex Australia on Twitter as to why there was a consistent mark-up...

Their public response was that "It simply isn't true that merchants in Australia charge an extra fee for using an Amex"... yeah, right...

I couldn't agree more with you.

Can't your bank advise what local currency amount you've been charged? Really US banks operate as if USD is the currency for the whole world?!

This decision was made when credit cards were first introduced and were not used in most/all transactions. It was thought outrageous at that time that Party A could order service, and Party B would have to pay the bill. However the CC banks succeeded in making CC surcharges illegal in the US, and possibly other countries. Now several decades later we no longer think that the banks' skimming on most of retail transactions is anything but normal.

It's rare to see surcharges in North America, but I've seen Chinese restaurants in Canada that have a CC surcharge. I don't know if it's illegal or not.

Yeah, CC surcharges are actually allowed in the US now thanks to a recent SCOTUS decision and previous settlements with merchants. Of course, other than at gas stations, they still aren't really considered "normal".

As for Australia, IIRC EFTPOS is free for merchants. That and debit being used way more than credit is why surcharging for credit is more common there.

Since this old thread is being revived, CC acceptance seems high in Sydney. Not sure what the locals usually use, but I didn't use a penny in cash. I got A$50 from the airport ATM. It's still on my desk now.

The locals use AUD debit as their preferred non-cash payment system. Not hard to build credit card acceptance on top of that with credit attracting surcharges

Probably legal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surcha...ystems)#Canada

Card associations will generally include no-surcharging T&C in their merchant agreements by default (e.g. HK is a by default jurisdiction) unless there is a statutory or regulatory override. Canada and Australia have the override, among others.