I made the right choice, but as I said it took me a second :o

Stay vigilant, my friends...

That's a very common practice all over Latin America. Prices are quoted in USD, but then the hotel converts into local currency using an exchange rate that usually varies somewhat from the "official" rate.

I had that happen a couple of times in Guatemala this past summer. In one case, it was at a hotel, and at the other, it was at a shop inside the Westin Camino Real in Guatemala City. In both cases it was a negligible difference. I think in Guatemala the convention is just to quote hotel prices in USD, but then to charge in quetzales. In the case of the shop, I think they just price everything in USD because their market is foreign tourists and they assume gringos can't deal with dividing by 8 or whatever.

In other countries (Uruguay springs to mind), hotels will quote you prices in USD and then just automatically charge your card that price in USD - no currency conversion, no DCC, just a straight-up USD transaction.

Thanks! Showing my lack of experience in South America. Helpful to know it is a common practice and not just this hotel pulling a sneaky move. Still not ideal to me, but... We did have one vendor want to sell us a high-end item and they quoted dollars, charged us dollars, but that was a clear thing vs the conversion.

It's an honest transaction, but may not be a good deal. It's buyer's responsibility to research the market, especially for a high-end item -- then negotiate accordingly.

No DCC at all in Paris with the Cap One Ven X

This was from Wednesday, but I think it was MCC instead of DCC since it appeared one could select any of the currencies in the drop down list:

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...86d9315f2e.jpg

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Travelex ATM at LHR on 12/29:

Quoted exchange rate: 1.4434 USD/GBP
Quoted markup: 12.49%

Visa exchange rate: 1.283099 USD/GBP
Actual markup: 12.49%

It was easy enough to opt out, and it was interesting that the actual markup matched the quoted markup. Historically, the actual markup has typically been higher.

During my travels, I came across a POS device that would access DCC options after tapping or chip. Then it would show a message that was too quick for me to take a picture which clearly said that only the customer can select the currency choice (for devices that are not consumer facing). Then, the two flags would show up with the local currency/country and the converted option.

I think it is a good reminder that when you protest a DCC it is about not having a choice. Although, it seems that in many cases our local issuers eat the charge difference.

UOB ATM in Singapore

I withdrew S$100, and the DCC offer appeared as 1 SGD = 0.78181 USD (3.99%) for $78.18. There were buttons at the bottom with both SG and US flags and read, "Proceed without conversion," and "Proceed with conversion." I declined DCC, and the pending transaction showed as $75.18, which matches the 3.99% markup.

I didn't see any additional DCC in Singapore, Thailand, or Japan although admittedly I had few data points from Thailand. I had some leftover SGD that I opted to change to THB, so outside of the hotel and two fast food restaurants I used cash. The DCC implementation at 7-Eleven ATMs in Japan remains unchanged from a year ago.

More interestingly, I was doing an AAdvantage Hotels stay at a local Hilton this week. Normally I use my Hilton AmEx, but I didn't have it on me when I checked in. The terminals there use Evalon as the payments processor, and when I tapped the Visa card a message that appeared that said something like, "Wait for DCC..." that wasn't present with an AmEx. Since this was a USD denominated card there was no way to test if DCC would appear on the preauth for a non-USD card.

Datapoint: No DCC for me in Norway this past week.

Oh, I meant to post this but forgot, since I was in Singapore basically the same time as you :p

No DCC option, but ATM convenience fees at OCBC (S$8) and Citi (S$3) which happily my account reimburses.

Going to Ireland during the latter half of February and have been making reservations for stuff online. So far, I haven't run into any DCC with any websites that we could tell, which is a bit surprising given that Ireland's had a pretty bad reputation for DCC in the past. Hopefully in-person transactions run just as smoothly once we're there. :tu:

I didn't encounter any DCC during my April 2023 trip with one exception at a pub where the bartender proactively pressed euros. "Don't worry. I've got ya!" The caveats are that I used an Amex for the hotels and contactless for all of the other transactions.