topic Mastercard and Discover in China trip in Credit Cards

Mastercard and Discover in China trip

Subexistence — Thu, 05 Jul 2018 16:55:13 GMT

I will be visiting China soon and would like to ask what are your experiences using Paypal 2% mastercard and/or Discover in China. How are your experiences using Discover on UnionPay

Re: Mastercard and Discover in China trip

Cookiegrabber — Fri, 06 Jul 2018 02:01:25 GMT

Haven't been to China, but I dealt with a lot of Chinese and can confirm that Unionpay and mobile payment platforms like Alipay are huge. So big that I've seen a lot of Chinese coming here to travel with a bunch of Unionpay cards and no Visa or MC, then go like "What? You don't accept Unionpay?"

I'd just take both and add them to Alipay in advance if possible. Just curious, what are the FTFs on the Paypal card? I couldn't find a copy of the agreement on their website.

Re: Mastercard and Discover in China trip

Anonymous — Fri, 06 Jul 2018 02:03:23 GMT

This was a couple years ago but I recall using my Visa in China. The biggest credit card company was UnionPay, a firm pretty much unheard outside of China.

I think I could use Mastercard at major American chain locations but not much place else.

I recommend asking the question on the "answers" section of EChinaCities. It operates like old school Yahoo Answers. That was the main expat forum back in the day and they'll give you the up to date information.

Re: Mastercard and Discover in China trip

Anonymous — Fri, 06 Jul 2018 03:33:51 GMT

I was in Shanghai last year and a common problem is that, when paying with visa or mc, the terminal would trick you into using DCC which incurs a 5 - 8 percent conversion premium. To avoid that and pay in local currency you need to ask the cashier to do something like quickly cancel when transaction approved, redo with a new option, etc. It is very frustrating.

Discover however can be processed as their own Union Pay card, and is automatically charged in local currency (which is what you want to do to minimise conversion fee). Only downside is cashiers may be uninformed since the card doesn't display a UnionPay logo. Discover provides you this small printed instruction card you can provide to the cashiers.

Re: Mastercard and Discover in China trip

arkane — Fri, 06 Jul 2018 06:25:59 GMT

According to this, don't even bother if you have a Discover chip card.

Re: Mastercard and Discover in China trip

wasCB14 — Fri, 06 Jul 2018 07:33:46 GMT

@Cookiegrabber wrote:
Haven't been to China, but I dealt with a lot of Chinese and can confirm that Unionpay and mobile payment platforms like Alipay are huge. So big that I've seen a lot of Chinese coming here to travel with a bunch of Unionpay cards and no Visa or MC, then go like "What? You don't accept Unionpay?"

I'd just take both and add them to Alipay in advance if possible. Just curious, what are the FTFs on the Paypal card? I couldn't find a copy of the agreement on their website.

In CA, I occasionally see merchants display signs for JCB and UnionPay...merchants that still won't take Amex.

Re: Mastercard and Discover in China trip

Cookiegrabber — Fri, 06 Jul 2018 07:51:06 GMT

@wasCB14 wrote:
@Cookiegrabber
In CA, I occasionally see merchants display signs for JCB and UnionPay...merchants that still won't take Amex.

Lol yeah, businesses can be funny. I was at a major airline, and we took Amex but not Discover or Unionpay.

Re: Mastercard and Discover in China trip

Subexistence — Fri, 06 Jul 2018 19:19:15 GMT

@Cookiegrabber
Just curious, what are the FTFs on the Paypal card? I couldn't find a copy of the agreement on their website.

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Credit-Cards/Paypal-2-cash-back-no-foreign-transaction-fee/td-p/5082766

Re: Mastercard and Discover in China trip

K-in-Boston — Fri, 06 Jul 2018 19:59:59 GMT

@Cookiegrabber wrote:
@wasCB14 wrote:
@Cookiegrabber
In CA, I occasionally see merchants display signs for JCB and UnionPay...merchants that still won't take Amex.
Lol yeah, businesses can be funny. I was at a major airline, and we took Amex but not Discover or Unionpay.

Businesses used to have to negotiate directly with Amex and Discover for processing. With Amex, they now offer OptBlue through your regular credit card processor (for businesses doing under $1M in annual Amex sales), so Amex acceptance is growing quickly. Discover has been trying to completely get out of processing, and now only negotiates with very large revenue businesses. Discover has been included with Visa/MasterCard processing for quite a while now, and a business would actually have to actively opt out of it now.

In theory, any business that accepts the Discover card should be able to also process UnionPay (China), JCB (Japan), Diners Club International (the real ones, not the current US MasterCard version from BMO Harris), as well as some more niche cards like DinaCard (Serbia), BC Card (RoK), RuPay (India), Elo (Brazil) and Troy (Turkey). Whether they actually can or not will depend on whether their hardware is programmed to accept the card ranges, since not all of them will comform to the 16-digit card numbers beginning with 6011, 6440 and 6506. Diners Club in particular can be troublesome because the numbers begin with a 3 like Amex. Anyway, the same principle applies when you're in any of those other markets - your Discover card should work on the UnionPay, JCB, etc. network but it will depend on the merchant's setup.

Re: Mastercard and Discover in China trip

acciofirebolt — Sat, 07 Jul 2018 00:56:45 GMT

I have a relative who went to China a few months ago, from what I gathered he mainly paid in cash and because cards wasn't widly (except for WeChat and Alipay). He had relatives there so it wasn't a problem for him to use cash instead of card. Although, he did visit a lot places that aren't frequented by tourists so that could be why acceptance rate was low for him, he mainly went to local spots. I added him as a AU on my ThankYou Premier and QuickSilver and he was able to use it in hotels and in tourist areas.

Re: Mastercard and Discover in China trip

joltdude — Sat, 07 Jul 2018 01:47:32 GMT

If you want to attempt to use Discover abroad.. go into your account while your here and go to the Register Travel option in the account menu... and get the little translation sheet.... If you dont register the card Discover will likely not go through and they will err on the side of fraud and tend to decline even if the card is accepted...

Re: Mastercard and Discover in China trip

Revelate — Sat, 07 Jul 2018 15:26:53 GMT

Visa worked pretty much everywhere I went in Shanghai and Hong Kong both that accepted CC's last year.

Didn't really test a MC, I do know Discover is basically a non-starter.

Do bring something useful to get local currency: the bigger problem I had in Shanghai was that there were places that didn't accept credit cards and when we're talking outside of Hong Kong, Shanghai is by the most expat/foreigner focused as I understand it from talking to some people.

My solution was the most excellent Schwab debit card, and carrying around some local currency in addition to the CSR I had no troubles in China paying for things.

Re: Mastercard and Discover in China trip

Anonymous — Sat, 07 Jul 2018 15:42:09 GMT

@Revelate wrote:
Visa worked pretty much everywhere I went in Shanghai and Hong Kong both that accepted CC's last year.

Didn't really test a MC, I do know Discover is basically a non-starter.

Do bring something useful to get local currency: the bigger problem I had in Shanghai was that there were places that didn't accept credit cards and when we're talking outside of Hong Kong, Shanghai is by the most expat/foreigner focused as I understand it from talking to some people.

My solution was the most excellent Schwab debit card, and carrying around some local currency in addition to the CSR I had no troubles in China paying for things.

Amazing you got out alive with your reputation

Re: Mastercard and Discover in China trip

SBR249 — Sat, 07 Jul 2018 20:08:54 GMT

Adding your foreign cards to an ewallet like wechat or alipay may not work for a few reasons. I had a lot of trouble adding foreign cards on those apps to begin with because they often ask for a Chinese address or only list Chinese issuing banks in the options. If you download the international version you may have better luck. However, even if you succeed in adding your card, you may frequently run into merchant-specific restrictions such as no foreign cards, no credit cards, mainland debit cards only, etc. I know that when I try to use a foreign card in alipay for some transactions the option to use my foreign cards are just not available as payment options.

Re: Mastercard and Discover in China trip

noobody — Sun, 08 Jul 2018 17:23:16 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Revelate wrote:
Visa worked pretty much everywhere I went in Shanghai and Hong Kong both that accepted CC's last year.

Didn't really test a MC, I do know Discover is basically a non-starter.

Do bring something useful to get local currency: the bigger problem I had in Shanghai was that there were places that didn't accept credit cards and when we're talking outside of Hong Kong, Shanghai is by the most expat/foreigner focused as I understand it from talking to some people.

My solution was the most excellent Schwab debit card, and carrying around some local currency in addition to the CSR I had no troubles in China paying for things.
Amazing you got out alive with your reputation

Bad advices indeed, V/MC acceptance is low outside foreigner oriented establishment as the payment network is monopoly by union pay. Even in big city like Shanghai
Credit card is much much more accepted in HK
I don't have discover, so no experience about it.
Most Chinese people use wechat or alipay which tied with Chinese bank issued debit/ credit card. Foreign bank issued cards have trouble to register and use as SBR249 said.
Charles Schwab HP for checking account setup.
Fidelity does SP and no FT fee or ATM cash withdraw fee, they do charge 1% for POS sale out of country.