sammyindc

I have and it is indeed cash only for the city tax only which is $2 per day.

MSPeconomist

Why does the hotel have such a policy? Especially for an airport property where there can be some transit passengers without local currency. Ridiculous to make them waste the time and fees to change such a small amount of money. Could it be that the hotel wants to profit enormously from changing a bit of money for a big surcharge so that people can pay the tax in cash? It sounds like a scam directed at their less fortunate foreign guests.

iztok

Considering this is in EU and currency is Euro, chances are you are not a transit passenger. Rome is not a major EU anyways where you would be stuck transiting only. Granted it has few Alitalia from US, to rest of the Europe but that is not that big.

Basically I am saying is that customers at this CY would probably have EUR currency.

Global_Hi_Flyer

Many of the hotels in Italy (esp. the Marriott Milan) use DCC on credit cards, so they more than recoup any credit card fee.

BKKLEE

way to not be hit by DCC is to refuse to sign CC bill unless bill is in local currency (same in china)............

nacho

Use Marriott GC. That will solve the problem.

Counsellor

I'm finding they try to sneak through DCC more and more in Europe. Had it from stores and hotels in Belgium, Germany, Poland as well as Italy. You need to read the credit card charge slip very carefully before you sign, because the cashier or front desk doesn't mention it.

More importantly, with Avis, they hide this in the contract when you pick up the car. Read it through -- you're volunteering and agreeing to DCC. That way when you drop off the car it's too late -- you've been DCC'd.

Disgusting scam! Particularly with all the cards available in the US that don't have a foreign currency conversion fee at all (like the Marriott Rewards card, also BA Visa from Chase and the Hilton Reserve Visa from Citi).

And in some cases where your card does charge a foreign transaction fee, they charge it even if you've been DCC'd because the transaction itself is overseas, so you get hit twice!

As they used to say on Hill Street Blues, "Be careful out there."

nacho

This happened to us when we were in the US! It's not just Europe. I was DCCed in France even though I had a copy of the contract saying that I'd like to be billed in EUR!

If you want to avoid it, get an AMEX, afaik they are the only one that is not DCCable.

Happy

Yes, it is a default option in Avis system. You have to specifically tell the agent at the desk that you would only accept billing in local currency - they sometimes would still default to the DCC - happened to us at Zurich (and the contract was in German but I could guess some of the meaning). We asked the counter to delete that paragraph but when we returned the car at the airport, it was still defaulted back to the DCC billing. We had to waste a few minutes to get it corrected. It did not happen at Toulouse but the insurance option is a default opt-in at that location. The agent at Toulouse had a very hard time to get rid of that option.
You need to have your reservation print out and be diligent to compare the total price with the contract print out and your reservation print out - that was how we caught the insurance option being a default opt-in.

If your card charges a forex fee, then you would be hit twice - first the DCC then your own card issuer.
If your card does not charge a forex fee, you still are hit by the DCC which often can be as high as 5% extra these days.
It is a total scam for the establishments from retailers to hoteliers to car rental companies to generate additional profits on the unwary customers.

Happy

Then you need to choose your AMEX carefully because only a very few AMEX cards do not charge forex fee - the PLAT card does not but the PRG does, close to 3%.
Both the SPG and HHonor and DL AMEX (at least the lower level) charge forex fee.

You should use a 0% forex fee card and at the same time be very diligent and FIRM to refuse the bill that is DCCed. At least with most chain hotels and rental cars the bills are not final until you accept it. Worst offenders are those small establishments that swipe your card first at check-in - that was the one time we got hit by surprise at a local hotel at Seville, Spain.

nacho

Not sure you can completely avoid that in China - I haven't tried it myself but if you search around in this form, I saw somewhere that they can't DCC Amex.

I'm not used to 0% forex fee, we have to pay forex fee for a lot of cards, and in Denmark I don't even recall if there is any card that is forex free.