Indeed they are, and dmapr specifically cited 0% FTF cards in the above post. Ironically, back when many US cards had a CEF instead of a FTF, accepting DCC would make sense in cases where the CEF was lower than the cost of DCC since you'd earn points on the whole transaction amount but not the CEF. 15+ years ago, DCC was far less egregious than it is today. I remember seeing DCC being < 3%. Over time, US cards switched from CEFs to FTFs, and many travel cards later went to having a 0% FTF. In these cases, accepting DCC never makes sense, and DCC fees are now 4-5% or higher compared to the Visa/MC rate.

HBA airport. Easy enough to opt out, though I can't recall if I've ever seen anything this high

13.5%?!! At least they make it, and how to opt out, obvious.

Well, travelling in Spain and Portugal now and I can say DCC is pretty much on every terminal i encountered. Most terminals only activate it when there is a need for signature. This can be defeated with using your mobile device. Some activate it every time - just today at a local restaurant I had a �9.60 charge, paid by Google pay ask about currency choice. Easy to decline DCC but still..


The most curious instance I had was in a restaurant in Malaga though. I used an EU revolut issued for Poland. I have EUR on it and have been using it no problem and.. I was DCC'd! It asked if I want to pay in PLN or EUR. Funnily enough, I had no PLN on the account at the time. But this was the first time ever it did that, I wonder what the reason was/is.

If you had selected PLN, it would have declined?

Mainstream article

Traveling abroad? Don�t be tempted to pay your way using your home currency

https://www.cnn.com/travel/foreign-t...ncy/index.html

There is a link to new EU regulations here in the article:

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-cont...X%3A32021R1230

I wonder how this will work in practice.

Sorry for the delay but yes - it would have, and I had this happen at a local shoe store in a small town for the second time! The two younger cashiers were puzzled when the currency selection came up on their terminal and they pressed PLN and I got a notification that there was not enough money in the PLN account so transaction was denied. Then they went ahead and hit EUR and it worked like a charm. Interesting indeed.

Was recently in Europe for a little over a week, including PRG and parts of Germany and Austria. Did a ton of contactless with my CSR and was only prompted for DCC once at a restaurant in Prague (and the waiter asked so it was easy to avoid)

Took Euros out of an ATM in Germany, no DCC prompt and no ATM fee, quite refreshing!

This is the problem with DCC when the cashier controls the terminal. Had you had PLN in the account to cover the transaction you would have been hit with DCC.

If it's a Deutsche Bank ATM, you're liable to get �100 banknotes though.

PLN?

Start reading from Post 994.

Yes, and we've kind of gone in a weird circle in Europe - often they just expect a tap, so they don't hand you the terminal or it's not customer facing - the top of it where you tap is customer facing (especially those handheld ones, which are ubiquotous in Europe now) and you never actually see what is on it - you only tap.

What's worse is that there's no PIN - although sometimes there's the DCC prompt after PIN entry - or signature with most contactless transactions, which means we lose the ability to cancel a transaction or deface a receipt.

Ran into this in Spain this past May. Almost everywhere offered the option to pay (or ATM withdrawal) in USD. One ATM the wording it was something like "do you not decline the conversion" - or something so stupid. I cancelled out of that transaction. I did get hit once with one purchase early in the trip (low cost so good) where the clerk reached around and hit the accept DCC. I became VERY aware of that afterwards. One good thing with US credit cards is that they do prompt for signature (or at least my chase cards still do) so I think that pushed them to give me the credit card machine.

It was new to us how bad the ATM fees are (5-7 EUR) in Spain this year. We were in France in 2022 and no issue with DCC or fees. Portugal in 2019 and the same - no fees or DCC. I only did three WDs in our four weeks in Spain but must have hit 10 or 15 banks to find the best ATM. Kept cancelling out when they finally told me either the DCC or the awful fee. Found one bank that had no fee and 1% conversion fee. Wish I remembered it!

It is for sure a rip off. My brother got hit with it at an ATM in Italy a few weeks ago. He said he declined but I am pretty sure he misunderstood and did it wrong (does not travel much and is brilliant but not so smart!) I think he told me there was a fee and the exchange rate. EUR600 cost him something along the line of USD740.