Subject: [72attendees] Credit card charges at CityWest

From: "Vijay Devarapalli" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 18:00:42 -0700

I was looking at my receipts today and noticed that the CityWest hotel
charged me in US dollars for the accommodation. They did not charge me
in Euros. For the exchange rate, they conveniently picked 1.6171. The
actual conversion rate on Friday was 1.57.

I am not really sure why they didn't charge me in Euros. The
corresponding US dollar amount would have shown up on my credit card
statement anyway. For four nights of stay that came to $26 more.

Did anyone else experience this?

Vijay
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From: Ole Jacobsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 18:43:43 -0700 (PDT)

They asked me what currency I wanted to be charged in. When this 
happens I *always* pick the local one (Euros in this case) to avoid 
exactly the issue you describe.

Ole

Ole J. Jacobsen
Editor and Publisher,  The Internet Protocol Journal
Cisco Systems
Tel: +1 408-527-8972   Mobile: +1 415-370-4628
E-mail: [email-masked]  URL: http://www.cisco.com/ipj

---

From: "Vijay Devarapalli" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 19:22:20 -0700

> exactly the issue you describe.

They did not ask me this question.

Vijay

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From: Ole Jacobsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 19:28:50 -0700 (PDT)

Well, OK, then it's a lesson for next time. At this stage you may be 
able to claim being overcharged and initiate a dispute through your
card company if you think it's worth it. Certainly I would say that
such charges are legitimate business expenses from the point of view
of your expense report, but I agree that it's annoying. Just another
thing to look out for as a traveller.

ole

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From: JORDI PALET MARTINEZ <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 05 Aug 2008 10:16:58 +0200

You can always send a letter by email or fax to your bank not accepting this
charge, and clearly indicating that you didn't allowed them to charge in
another currency. It works, I've been in that situation.

This hotel really need to learn the lesson.

Regards,
Jordi

> From: Vijay Devarapalli <[email-masked]>
> Reply-To: <[email-masked]>
> Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 18:00:42 -0700
> To: "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>
> Subject: [72attendees] Credit card charges at CityWest
> 

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From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 05 Aug 2008 11:15:47 +0200

> This hotel really need to learn the lesson.

For the record, they tried to overcharge me as well (using a room rate I 
hadn't booked).

BR, Julian

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From: Dale Worley <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 05 Aug 2008 09:38:34 -0400

> Did anyone else experience this?

They offered to charge me in dollars, but I declined, since I think my
credit card offers a better conversion rate.  I suspect that it is a
clumsy error on their part, as the failings of CityWest seem to be
mistakes rather than deliberate venality.  I would start by calling them
and asking for the charges to be corrected into euros.

Dale

---

From: "DRAGE, Keith \(Keith\)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 15:59:27 +0200

Every hotel (big and small) I have stayed in in Ireland over the last 3
or 4 years has offered the option charging my credit card in Euros or in
pounds sterling (my home currency). I doubt whether the hotels
themselves make any money out of this, rather it is a generic option
offered by the credit card company the hotel contracts with.

And as far as I know the hotel was generally asking this question at
checkout. So it seems like someone forgot or there was some
miscommunication.

There are other countries where charging in a third currency seems to
happen automatically without you even being consulted. Its just
something you need to watch constantly in international travel.

And I would add that some of the complaints / comments levelled against
the hotel are just the way these things are done in Ireland, and nothing
specific to the hotel. For example, the catch on my window was broken -
call maintenance to sort it out and open the window - maintenance does
and promises to fix catch - two days later maid shuts window - call
maintenance to sort it out and open the window - I suspect they still
have not got around to fixing the catch! There is always tomorrow to do
the job.

Regards

Keith

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] 
> [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Dale Worley
> Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2008 2:39 PM
> To: Vijay Devarapalli
> Cc: [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: [72attendees] Credit card charges at CityWest
> 
> They offered to charge me in dollars, but I declined, since I 
> think my credit card offers a better conversion rate.  I 
> suspect that it is a clumsy error on their part, as the 
> failings of CityWest seem to be mistakes rather than 
> deliberate venality.  I would start by calling them and 
> asking for the charges to be corrected into euros.
> 
> Dale
> 
>

---

From: "Vijay Devarapalli" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 08:06:38 -0700

On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 7:28 PM, Ole Jacobsen <[email-masked]> wrote:
>
> Well, OK, then it's a lesson for next time.

I guess. FWIW, this is the first time. I travel quite a bit to Europe.
Always been charged in Euros or the local currency.

Perhaps this is specific to Ireland?

Vijay

> At this stage you may be

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From: "Clive D.W. Feather" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 15:59:28 +0100

> offered by the credit card company the hotel contracts with.

This is the first time I have stayed in Ireland, so I can't comment on
that. But I was asked which currency I wanted to be charged in, and was
told that the terminal asked the question when it identified that I had a
UK card.

> checkout. So it seems like someone forgot or there was some

Indeed.

-- 
Clive D.W. Feather  | Work:  <[email-masked]>   | Tel:    +44 20 8495 6138
Internet Expert     | Home:  <[email-masked]>  | Fax:    +44 870 051 9937
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From: Sandra Murphy <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 14:03:18 -0400 (Eastern Daylight Time)

The front desk asked me the "euro or dollars" question.  So did the hotel 
I moved to for the weekend.  So did several merchants.

I chose the euros in each case, for precisely the "my credit card company 
is probably going to charge me a better conversion rate than this 
merchant" reason.

I also recognized that my credit card company would charge me a 3% 
transaction fee for each conversion.  That's fairly widespread but I don't 
know if you are including that transaction fee in your computation of the 
savings.  It could be a coincidence, but 1.03*1.57 = 1.6171.  Or maybe the 
hotel's deal with the credit card company sets the conversion rate to 
ensure that the same amount gets charged to your card, whatever.

--Sandy

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From: "Vijay Devarapalli" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 11:12:55 -0700

On Tue, Aug 5, 2008 at 11:03 AM, Sandra Murphy <[email-masked]> wrote:
> The front desk asked me the "euro or dollars" question.  So did the hotel I
> moved to for the weekend.  So did several merchants.
>
> I chose the euros in each case, for precisely the "my credit card company is
> probably going to charge me a better conversion rate than this merchant"
> reason.
>
> savings.  It could be a coincidence, but 1.03*1.57 = 1.6171.

I got the 1.57 conversion rate from another charge I made on my credit
card the same day. Not the office exchange rate that day.

BTW, I have a card which does not have a transaction fee from the card
issuer. Just the 1% that goes to Visa.

Vijay

Or maybe the
> hotel's deal with the credit card company sets the conversion rate to ensure
> that the same amount gets charged to your card, whatever.
>
> --Sandy
>
>

---

From: Kurt Erik Lindqvist <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2008 20:24:51 +0200

On 5 aug 2008, at 16.59, Clive D.W. Feather wrote:

> RAGE, Keith (Keith) said:

European creditcard companies and banks seems to be moving to a system  
where the terminals will always ask you what currency you want to be  
charged in. Local or your "home currency". This is true for my Visa  
and Mastercard but not my Amex card. I have only seen it happen in  
Europe though.

Best regards,

- - kurtis -

---

From: Ed Jankiewicz <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 05 Aug 2008 15:10:32 -0400

Only George Soros can beat the system.  The rest of us have to pay the 
points. 

I find the worst deals usually to be changing currency at airport kiosks 
and hotel desk, and the best being cash withdrawal from ATM but check 
that your brand name (Visa or whatever) is in the network to minimize 
fees.  Paying with a credit card in local currency is on the good side.  
Most important:  never trade both ways, i.e. don't end up with excess 
local currency that you then exchange back to home currency, because you 
pay those points twice.  Advice I got was to pay off a portion of the 
hotel bill with your leftover local cash, retaining what you need for 
the taxi, and settle the rest of the bill on the credit card.

Finally, any remaining local cash should be spent at the airport bar. 

-- 
Ed Jankiewicz - SRI International
Fort Monmouth Branch Office - IPv6 Research 
Supporting DISA Standards Engineering Branch
732-389-1003 or  [email-masked]

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From: Yaakov Stein <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2008 07:19:08 +0300

For the record, Citywest charged me correctly, in Euros, with no additional
charges, taxes, or problems of any kind.

On the other hand the Anatole from IETF-64 added a restaurant charge to my bill.
When I told them that I hadn't eaten at that restaurant, they removed the charge from my bill.
A month later it reappeared as a separate charge on my credit card.
It took half a dozen international phone calls to remove it the second time.

Y(J)S

---

From: "Clive D.W. Feather" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2008 09:14:16 +0100

> Finally, any remaining local cash should be spent at the airport bar. 

Generally true, but many of us living in the UK travel to the eurozone
often enough to ignore this advice - I stick spare euros in a spare wallet
so that I've got them to hand for the next trip or holiday.

---

From: Elwyn Davies <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 07 Aug 2008 22:31:19 +0100

> Did anyone else experience this?
This is now becoming a standard practice 'scam' that makes extra money
for the merchant (or ATM operator when applied to getting foreign
currency from an ATM using a credit card) .  You will more than likely
end up both paying the credit card foreign transaction charge and
getting an uncompetitve exchange rate. The conversion rate used is
whatever the merchant thinks they can get away with.

This cunning scheme goes under the name of Dynamic Currency Conversion
(DCC) - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_currency_conversion -
and is being rolled out around the world.

The official position from the credit card companies is that the
merchant is supposed to offer you the choice of paying in local currency
or your 'home' currency but many do not.   City West did actually ask me
which is what they are supposed to do.

*Check every time and ask for payment in local currency.*  I nearly got
scammed in another Dublin hotel where they didn't ask and i was about
100ms from authorizing the amount before I realized and complained
loudly.  They cancelled the bill and redid it in euros.  I first came
across this last year on a car hire (Avis in Italy) where they didn't
ask and put a clause into the contract that allowed them to charge me in
sterling rather than  euros.  It is nothing but a ripoff masquerading as
'a way to know what you will be paying in your home currency' (but in
actual fact not this amount in most cases because of fees).  Some shops
deny they can charge in local currency: call the manager or walk away!

Regards,
Elwyn

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From: Dale Worley <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 08 Aug 2008 11:13:39 -0400

> whatever the merchant thinks they can get away with.

But don't forget that there is also the battle between the bank that
services the merchant and the bank that services your card.  They both
want the profits from the currency conversion.  DCC is the means by
which the merchant's bank takes that piece of business away from the
card's bank.

Dale