Majuki

Yes, this was the case for me in December 2017. I had never previously seen DCC in Japan. Fortunately, my experiences matched yours and JPY was always a choice. However percysmith has had experiences where an opt out wasn't possible.

84fiero

I encountered DCC at about 25% of my CC transactions during 2 weeks in Greece last month, always being asked for my choice.

Points Scrounger

Checking into the hotel in Ireland today for incidentals: touch Euros or Dollars. No pressure at all from staff, just a comment to pick one.

Majuki

The good thing about Ireland (where this practice started) and the UK is it seems like DCC is largely discretionary, and there is no language barrier.

tmiw

Since Telcel's website won't let me reload my SIM card with US credit cards or PayPal accounts, I've begun to look into online reload services. Recharge.com for example seems to force USD as well as charge a $0.99 service fee; a MX$510 reload costs US$30 before said service fee, or 17 pesos per dollar. (For reference, Google currently says that MX$510 = US$27.05, or 18.85 pesos per dollar.) A brief look at other services seems to indicate that this practice isn't uncommon.

Anyway, while I expect to pay some sort of fee for this service, it seems more fair to me to have the entire fee itemized out instead of trying to hide most of it in the exchange rate.

tmiw

I'm currently in Mexico and I'm happy to report that I've yet to see DCC. Or at least no one I'm with has complained about it, anyway; I've only done two in-person transactions with my cards thus far and they seem to have all been done in pesos without any sort of prompting. I'll report back if I do find a place with it.

Happy

Ticket Window of Cable car at Santorini automatically DCCed the ticket purchase, never asked my choice. When I saw her looked at the screen then punch a small handheld on the desk I knew it was too late.

Points Scrounger

Do you think that if you had clearly said "Euro!" first it would've made a difference? From your description, it sounded as though she DCC'ed on purpose?

firemandan9

Particularly on larger transactions I specify I want to pay in the local currency (Euro) up front. I've had one too many restaurants try and tell me how good of a "deal" DCC is for me after auto enrolling me.

Majuki

I looked at the prices of the cable car, and my personal best practice is to pay cash for smaller transactions unless I know the merchant to be free of DCC. I will admit that it's somewhat of a defeatist attitude, but it's easier than having to file a dispute when the issuer may not even take up the case. For me, the threshold is perhaps $10-15. Especially for small souvenirs (postcards, refrigerator magnets, etc.) in shops, I find it easier to transact in cash. My default card would typically be the Chase Sapphire Reserve since that's my only Ultimate Rewards earning card with a 0% FTF, so in many of those situations I'd only be seeing 1x.

For larger purchases, I typically am better able to monitor the payment. In the case of hotels, it's easy to avoid if you're staying at a Marriott/Starwood or Hilton, as both of those chains offer an AmEx affinity card. For other hotels, my best practice is to do a preauth on a 0% FTF AmEx and then avoid express checkouts. I'll go down to the desk and ask them to change the payment card and process in local currency if there is an option on the payment terminal. At least at hotels, I've never had an issue.

oliver2002

Remember the CSR customer service team will refund you the DCC loss immediately. Even on small transactions.

Happy

I dont know if it would make a difference. She might just do it out of habit. Or it was the "only" way she knew how to process foreign card. I have similar experiences at Poland railway station where the lady simply shrugged and told me that was the "only" way she knew how to do it despite her co-worker handled the transaction correctly earlier in the day.
Mind you, the transaction amount is small, like 14 euro in total I think. Not worth to spend time and effort to get it straight when the line was very long and moved very slowly despite we were the only ship in town.
FYI it is coded 1x on the CSR.

On all other transactions during the trip, primarily restaurant meals and B&B payments, some supermarkets, when I told them to use Euro, most seem to fully understand. Not a single attempt of DCC in Barcelona that surprised me. All Trenitalia ticket windows charged in Euro. All attractions ticket offices in Sicily also charged in Euro.

We even successfully get Avis to remove the automatic DCC part from the final bill as the agent at Pick Up did not remove the default clause just verbally assured us it would be in Euro. We knew better than that.

84fiero

Yeah it's not always worth the hassle in some small cases. I also found that in Greece many places wouldn't take a CC at all or the machine was "broken" - especially outside of the cities. So we used a fair amount of cash during the trip. Which I'd read that this might be the case so we were prepared for it.

Happy

It really depends.
Last year at Dubai I told the waiter to charge in local currency only being handed a transaction slip that was DCCed - never being presented an option. The dispute process with Chase was a VERY LONG DRAWN OUT process when dispute it online. I believe I have written the incident in length on this thread. (The merchant contested the dispute and refused to reinvoice. Chase sent me 20 pages stack of documents showing the transaction chain from merchant to processor to the bank! Chase offered a $40 credit to a $49 bill but the credit never actually posted albeit I did see it "reflected" in the available credit total, agent who handled this never returned phone call. Long story short, it was a supervisor at the general customer service number took it up and promptly saw the mishap, issued the $40 credit which showed up the next day.

It seems it is much simpler to just CALL to dispute the DCC instead of filing the dispute online despite it has such option to use in the menu of online dispute. Forget about asking for rebilling, just get back the portion being scammed. Friends' experiences have been, a supervisor would simply process the credit on the phone and it is done.

Majuki

I've noticed that Hertz in Italy does not DCC. Good job with Avis. I think there's also some profile setting with Avis?

I remember your issue with the restaurant in Dubai. Calling Chase might be the easiest option, but part of me dislikes that the merchants are getting away with the scam. I love Reason Code 76 chargebacks because the merchant at least feels a sting, even if the merchant has to contest it. Enough of those situations might motivate the merchant to change its behavior.