Merchants in Europe got new payment processing systems to comply with new EU rules in late 2019 / early 2020 so the terminals were upgraded/replaced just before the pandemic hit. I suppose with the upgrade the logic of DCC and the customer facing interfaces also got redesigned. Since there is a massive uptick in contactless payment (card wave, smart devices, qr code scan etc) DCC is also moving with the times and adapting to be in that space too :p

It’s also more prevalent in Scandinavia than it used to be. Easy enough to decline, but I’m sure many don’t understand what DCC USD selection means for their costs. Some are getting fleeced.

I'm happy there's an easy opt out now, but we must continue our education. It's nice to see an increasing number of travel bloggers call attention to it too.

A couple of years ago at the Prado gift shop the cashier asked me why I preferred to have my charge processed in Euros instead of US$. I explained the conversion fee. It was an eye opener for her and she thanked me for the explanation. Hopefully, she used her newly found knowledge to educate other customers.

The European Union has regulated DCC transactions. It is no longer possible to claim that the transaction will use the "Mumbo Jumbo Bank wholesale rate" (or whatever) with no fee and then hide the fee in the exchange rate. It is now mandatory to present the fee in the form of the difference between the merchant's rate and the latest exchange rate posted by the European Central Bank. When I withdraw cash from a Nordea cash machine in Denmark last month, Nordea had to accurately report the conversion fee to SEK as five point something per cent. As the fees are now easier to spot, more people are likely to discover what a rip-off they are. Even if you don't discover this the first time, you will find out eventually. Unfortunately, merchants and banks only have to present an accurate exchange rate if the card is denominated in the currency of an EU/EEA country, so travellers from China, Russia, the United States and other places might not find out about the real fee.

Since I live in the UK it's hard to tell, but as far as I know, DCC has always been rare here except for very rich tourist-focused shops like Harrods (which once outright told me the reason they don't have contactless enabled is because DCC doesn't work with it - or didn't at the time, a few years ago).

It's also worth noting that this most recent trip to Ireland was entirely contactless, so it's possible they just haven't caught up with contactless DCC.

Meanwhile in the last couple years, many receipts in the US feature "USD" in the transaction amount. Is this because of DCC? Meaning, if a foreign card user accepts DCC, the final transaction amount would not be USD?

I'm sure that every bank in Spain that has been listing a 0.5% markup and charging a markup closer to 5% will totally cut it out now that there's an EU directive (/s). Just like all the institutions (including the European Parliament!) that still ignore the 2011 directive banning IBAN discrimination and all the airlines that fight claims for delay compensation that they're clearly obligated to pay.

Probably just standardization across markets. A lot of currencies use the $ symbol, but there's no question what currency you used when the slip says "USD". DCC seems a lot less common in the U.S.--I know it exists but I've paid with EUR cards a fair bit and never seen it firsthand, whereas paying with USD cards in some parts of Europe it was ubiquitous.

Perhaps you're reading too much into it. To have a meaning, any quantity must have a number AND the unit of measurement. It's usually assumed that USD will be that "Unit" for purchases within the realm. But it can be spelled out, so no one would try to slip a Canadian quarter. :D

You still haven’t explained why “USD” went from zero to almost everywhere.

Other countries, other currencies are an afterthought in the US… I mean, do they exist? ;-)

Probably the only positive aspect of American exceptionalism I have heard! 😂

It did not for me. Have a pile of receipts containing mostly numbers, with an occasional $ character.

I will guess that this is due to the increase in the amount of DCC-capable hardware now present in stores, as things get upgraded to the latest stuff.

The only time I have seen DCC presented in the US was at...the Gap! It was well-presented, and my friend with the foreign card didn't need any help to make the right choice.

Re: DCC in the US--I wouldn't be surprised if it became more common in areas that have large numbers of international tourists. There are a lot of places that aren't as well traveled, though, and for those DCC would be a pretty hard sell for merchants in the first place. After all, if you maybe only get one foreign card a week, are you really going to make enough from DCC to justify the effort (especially if you have to change your existing practices to make it easy for the customer to opt out)?

On that note, another factor that might make DCC less common is the cultural expectation in certain industries (e.g. restaurants) that the customer not run their own cards. Of course, DCC is still possible via the checkbox on the receipt method (like what Hong Kong apparently does/did), but I'm not sure it's worth the trouble for many to implement that approach.

I suspect it's difficult to implement DCC if the customer is expected to leave a tip. If you try to fool your customers to pay extra for DCC, expect no or reduced tip.