I wanted to follow up on the situation with Avis in Scotland where I was overcharged for a car rental. My Chase statement came out and there is no sign of any currency conversion for the Avis transaction, which means Avis billed me in USD and hence applied DCC.

Since I had the DCC option unselected in my profile ("I choose to have Avis bill all my future rental charges to me in the currency of my Avis profile credit card." was off), the billed amount was incorrect and my dispute was entirely justified. The dispute was resolved by Chase and the difference refunded. My only gripe is that this refund likely came out of Chase's pockets instead of hitting Avis.

Why do you think this?

The dispute was immediately resolved in my favor. There is no way that Chase was able to confirm any facts with Avis.

I imagine DCC is likely common in the US. The ubiquity of USD denominated cards in everyday transactions prevents most of us who contribute to this thread from ever seeing DCC in the US.

Mrs. Majuki only had - it expired - one non-USD debit card, but since there was a non-zero FTF, there were no rewards, and she keeps an immaterial amount of cash in the linked checking account, she was never interested in using the card to check for DCC. We didn't try Walgreens though!

This was a customer service gesture on the part of Chase. When they do a full chargeback it takes a month or two to resolve.

Yes, exactly. And that's why I don't like it: Avis didn't get smacked over the head for trying to pull off an unauthorized DCC.

I don't think it's as common as in some countries, though. For starters, I've never heard of Square, Clover or Toast touting DCC as a feature for their respective products, and those comprise a seemingly huge part of the small/medium business POS market. Most of the DCC that's happening is likely mainly going to be with the larger players (or the really small ones still using standalone terminals from merchant providers that can in fact do DCC).

Of course, I could be wrong and there are in fact people using one of the above three with DCC turned on. /shrug

I imagine it isn't as common as some other countries, but the usual suspects of big retailers - there was a post here showing DCC at Best Buy a few years ago - likely have it enabled. What is different is the cashier being far less likely to have control over the DCC selection or being specifically trained to select DCC.

So far I have done six transactions, of which four are small players using small terminal or toast/clover and two at big ones - publix and Walgreens. Only Walgreens showed DCC. Obviously tiny sample size, and I will continue to use the card at small amounts in a regular everyday use to see. Will report back if I come across any more. It won't be super scientific, as I don't have thousands of dollars to spend there, but will see some examples and see how it goes.

My guess is that grocery stores are less likely to have DCC enabled. It wasn't the case at Safeway a few years ago when we tried. Forever 21 and Kate Spade had it enabled, at least in 2015, when my sister-in-law used her AUD denominated card.

I wonder if geography will matter. I can see LA, NY, SF, cities or states with big international tourism having more stores and hotels "aware" and trying to use DCC just given the customer base, or maybe towns near the Mexican or Canadian borders.

A significant part may very well also be that DCC only works out for the merchant if they can violate the card network rules on it with impunity. In a location where it's easier to ensure that all the requirements are met (i.e. Visa and MC's home country), I imagine very few customers would actually opt-in, thus making it not worthwhile for most merchants to even enable in the first place.

I can buy this potential explanation. I think it's a combination of factors. Enforcement of payment network rules is likely a contributing factor.

Beyond that, the predominance of USD denominated cards in the US makes it less lucrative for a small business to enable DCC on a standalone terminal. For instance, at a souvenir shop in NYC, what percentage of transactions will still be from USD cards versus a souvenir shop at a major cruise port city in Europe seeing cards denominated in local currency, especially for places not using the euro? You also mentioned not seeing DCC on Toast, Square, and equivalent terminals, which are ubiquitous in the US at small and independent merchants.

Finally, customer service attitudes, the indifference of many retail employees, customer facing terminals in retail settings, and self checkout options all favor the customer's ability to avoid DCC. When my sister-in-law saw DCC in a couple of retail environments with her AUD card, it appeared that the cashier didn't have any control over the currency selection. I say this because I asked her to wait for me to take a photo, and the cashier seemed to be waiting for input on the customer's part. One of the few cases where the customer wouldn't have access to the terminal would be in a restaurant, but customer service (and the prospect of a bad tip) would avoid DCC there. It's not like elsewhere in the world where from our own experiences staff seem to be trained to direct or force DCC upon customers. We've seen multiple posts here of people asking employees to opt out of DCC proactively, and the employees feigning surprise by replying, "Let's see what happens. Oh, it looks like it charged in your home currency. I can't do anything to fix it."

I would’ve thought some acquirers push DCC proactively, unrequested by merchants or their staff, using the power of involuntary opt-in to achieve unjust enrichment.

Absent card network enforcement, or merchants using their negotiating power to get banks to remove this feature (provided they care about the customer experience), customers are burdened to opt out or seek recompense from their issuer banks.

Post-pandemic, multi-currency products like Revolut seem to be a passive-aggressive defence against Dynamic Currency Conversion (much like noise cancelling headgear is a defence against people not using headphones and “brave” headphone jack abolition https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/cath...ce-policy.html ).

Just got back from two weeks in Belgium and the UK, and to my pleasant surprise I only encountered a DCC prompt once at my hotel in Belfast despite running pretty much every transaction I made through my Canadian issued MasterCard. ​​​Big contrast to my last pre-COVID trip to London where I frequently encountered DCC prompts, including at many of the very same merchants I went to this time.

As a very frequent cross border traveler, my experiences with DCC in the US have almost exclusively been at large, national retail chains. The TJX chains immediately come to mind as my most recent experience but it happens at others as well. These are all situations where it's easy to decline as the option shows up on the customer facing digital signature pad.

​​​Not to say it doesn't exist, but I don't think I've yet come across DCC at a hotel or restaurant in the US. I do tend to avoid tourist hot spots like Orlando or Times Square, though
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