DCC, just pressing the point here. After having a post Christmas holiday to Spain and the Canaries, oh it’s been so useful having a Santander debit card for ATM withdrawals, but I digress
Anyway, last purchase at an airport duty free shop in the Canaries, I bought goods worth €142.50. Obviously, went to pay, using my Chase debit card, and I was as us usual, offered to pay in GBP or Euros. GBP would have cost me nearly £139, instead selecting Euros I paid £129, so it absolutely pays to be on the ball and not select DCC as so many do.
What part of it? Cards also don’t have any indication of if they’re in a particular denomination or country, AFAIK. People just use BIN lists which have best guesses in them.
Me too, memorably at El Corte Ingles, where the cashier/staff member insisted that I could only pay in sterling because i was British and this was a British card, as did the manager, who she called over. We just left the not inconsiderable shop on the belt and walked off, much to their chagrin.
We had a not dissimilar experience at another branch of the same shop, wherein the manager (eventually) overrode the DCC, I suspect the former manager just didn’t want to. And again at a café, where they absolutely insisted I could only pay in sterling if I paid by card, so I got him to go through the steps and he quickly clicked on the pound sign at “Do you want to pay in Euros or pounds” automatically. The manager was also involved and eventually accepted this, but we pointedly did not leave a tip.
I think the only card I used in the last two years in Spain that automatically gave Euros as the primary currency, was my former HSBC Zing card (I genuinely miss that debit card) because it was produced and issued in either Germany or Poland.
The PayPal debit card I had, was produced in and posted from Germany, though I’ll never get to use that one again anyway.
I think in that instant moment in the airport duty free shop payment terminal, when the option of payment in Euros and GBP pops up, some folks will just look at what the GBP total shows and without even thinking, will just select GBP unaware that it’s the most expensive option. Clearly those of us who are more savvy, won’t get caught out.
The card I had before was a CaxtonFX which you were penalised for using for sterling transactions - I would have been doubly shaken down for a euro to sterling transaction by El Corte Ingles, and then a sterling to euro transaction by Caxton FX. Things may have changed.
