Bits: my worst ever Dynamic Currency Conversion scam, Flybe sale, good Iberia Plus wine offer

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• Toby says:

  5 Mar5 March 05:46

  “Using the 2nd machine, I was given the option of paying in Pounds or Dirham. I chose £ ”

  Do you mean you didn’t choose £? Either way, I’m shocked that a machine could even be set up that way, good to know that’s even possible.

  • Raffles says:

    5 Mar5 March 08:18

    Sorry, typo.

• Neil says:

  5 Mar5 March 06:54

  The DCC scam is my biggest frustration when travelling in Europe. For me the worst offender is by far Accor – even in law abiding Germany they never ask and the bill always comes up in £’s. On a recent stay at Mercure in Amsterdam they grumbled and had to go get a second machine when I insisted on paying Euro. Following a stay at the Dusseldorf Airport Novotel last year it took six weeks to get a refund of the difference (I was tired and hadn’t initially noticed the £ charge when checking out).

  • ee says:

    5 Mar5 March 08:26

    Pullman Bangkok charged my advanced purchase reservation in GBP rather the THB, I was not happy and complained. Issue was only resolved when escalated to GM. The difference was only about £30 but the sneakiness of it really annoyed me.

    • Londonbus says:

      6 Mar6 March 22:26

      Hong Kong and Mainlinad China are bad too – tthey invariabl select sterling and you get handed a machine asking for your PIN number. Not good..

• sam wardill says:

  5 Mar5 March 06:55

  Hotels that scam guests like that deserve to be outed. Thanks Rob!

• Wicks says:

  5 Mar5 March 07:01

  I wonder how curve can give you in immediate figure. Don’t they need to wait for MasterCard rates for the day to be published?

  • Callum says:

    5 Mar5 March 11:45

    There’s no such thing as a “rate of the day”, the rate is constantly changing. If you use the Mastercard website you’ll get an average of the day, but the merchant will get whatever the rate was at that specific second.

    • Callum says:

      5 Mar5 March 12:20

      Though on second look maybe I’ve got that completely wrong? I read that somewhere (presumably reputable) a while ago but can see no mention of it on the Mastercard Exchange rate page – which as you say, refers to daily rates. Just goes to show you shouldn’t believe everything you read!

      • John says:

        5 Mar5 March 18:29

        No, the rate is for all transactions on the day. Visa even publishes its rate in advance (for supercard)

• KimJoi says:

  5 Mar5 March 07:06

  Hi Raffles … is there a reason why you did NOT pick Dirham when using your Curve card with the 2nd machine?

  • Rob says:

    5 Mar5 March 08:19

    Typo, sorry, now corrected. I meant Dirham.

• Andy says:

  5 Mar5 March 07:16

  Everywhere in Hong Kong does DCC, from PizzaExpress, ToysR’Us, to bars and hotels. You’re given (the rather small) option to tick a little box on the receipt to pay in $HK or home currency. Easy to miss when you’re in a rush.

  • Guesswho2000 says:

    5 Mar5 March 10:18

    Yes, that’s a major bugbear of mine in Hong Kong! The mainland is even worse though.

    In both cases I’ve regularly found the transaction gets processed and the first you know about it is a box you have to check on the receipt. A number of times I’ve had to argue the point in broken English (though which, in fairness, is better than my attempt at Chinese!).

    • Andy says:

      5 Mar5 March 10:26

      Yes, noticed that too. They carry out the transaction, give your card back after you’ve entered the PIN and only then give you a slip to select the currency and sign.

      Just done the maths on my hotel stay at the Sailsbury YMCA of Hong King, their DCC rate is 9.5% !!!

• Yuff says:

  5 Mar5 March 07:24

  More importantly did you book the whole hotel to have a bill of £750!!!!
  The rates in Ras al-Khaimah are ridiculously cheap or they used to be when I last looked 🙂

  • Rob says:

    5 Mar5 March 08:21

    Big room, bill is tax deductible!

    You don’t get far in that hotel on the cheap. I was looking at some of the invoices on reception whilst the DCC saga was going on and even those on packages in standard rooms were paying £200 per night.

    • Yuff says:

      5 Mar5 March 08:48

      I once borrowed an iPad, from the lounge, at the Atlantis Dubai and came across a screenshot of reservations, that hadn’t been deleted, with all the room numbers and prices paid. It made for very interesting reading and also made me feel better as I had got a reasonable deal 🙂
      Admittedly lots of guests were only staying 2-3 nights, however that wasn’t surprising given the rates they were being charged, I doubt they could afford to stay any longer:( Admittedly it was Easter!

    • Callum says:

      5 Mar5 March 11:48

      Feel free to tell me to mind my own business, but why is it tax deductible?

      • Brian says:

        5 Mar5 March 11:58

        That’s the advantage of running a profitable travel blog. You get to travel business class and lounge on the beach at 5-star resorts and put the costs down as expenses! :)) Good for Rob, I say, but it’s why it always amuses me how, whenever anybody dares to make a slightly negative comment about this blog, people on here will jump on that poster’s back as though he/she has committed blasphemy and as though Rob is some poor backpacker with minimal income who is slaving away just to give us all points-earning opportunities… :)))

        • Callum says:

          5 Mar5 March 12:29

          That’s what I assumed, but I wasn’t sure if there was a particular business reason for being there – like he was attending some kind of conference etc.

          I have absolutely no issue with the profit he invisibly generates from this blog (as you say, many people are under the impression it’s just a casual blog), but claiming luxury holidays as business expenses because of a few brief reviews reeks of tax avoision on the scale of Amazon etc. to me.

          I’m certainly not convinced that’s the case with Rob though, hence the question.

        • DV says:

          5 Mar5 March 14:23

          Another typically ignorant, nasty, carping, comment.

        • Rob says:

          5 Mar5 March 14:39

          Business trip, to be explained on Monday

        • Callum says:

          5 Mar5 March 15:22

          Ignorant? Yes, I am ignorant on the matter – hence why it was a question and not a statement.

          Nasty? I’m not quite sure asking a question about his tax affairs is nasty – he certainly didn’t seem to take it that way either. None of my business sure (I did point that out and say they didn’t need to reply) but I would have hoped Rob would have pointed out if he felt it was being nasty.

          Carping? Well assuming you mean it was a critical comment, I guess you could say that. I am indeed critical about tax avoision – though again, it was a QUESTION and not a statement. A mistyped question at that – it shouldn’t have said on the scale of Amazon (assuming Rob isn’t spending millions of pounds on these business trips!).

        • harry says:

          5 Mar5 March 15:57

          Avoision? lol

          New word to my vocabulary.

          Nothing to add to my obvious personal conclusions about this poster, except: Callum you could just occasionally think ‘today I will post totally pleasantly, even if I have a constructive criticism or suggestion to make’.

          You have made a couple of valid albeit caustic comments in the past,

        • Genghis says:

          5 Mar5 March 18:24

          So as long as the expense is wholly and exclusively for the use of the business then it’s tax deductible. Nothing dodgy about it.

        • Will says:

          5 Mar5 March 20:06

          I had to have a chuckle at this.

          You think there’s a legitimacy in being a poor backpacker relative to a profit making enterprise with respect to deciding if it’s a legitimate expense?

          It either is or is not, it’s not based on your income, wealth, gender, age, skin colour or anything else arbitratrary.

          There are communist countries out there if you do prefer such economic systems.

      • Rob says:

        5 Mar5 March 14:40

        Business trip

        You think my wife lets me dump her and the kids for a solo beach holiday?!

        • Danny says:

          5 Mar5 March 16:20

          Well said Harry and I’m glad someone else has noticed this as nearly every comments made by certain people on here gave the impression that they must have a negative attitude towards life and other people in general. If you don’t believe me, just look at some old post comments and you will see the undertone…..

        • Genghis says:

          5 Mar5 March 18:01

          Harry – didn’t you know – avoision is the even greyer area between avoidance and evasion… 🙂

        • harry says:

          5 Mar5 March 19:20

          lol

          However, I am very forgiving to the Autism spectrum, my son is autistic & I think I’m a bit of an undiagnosed autyboy myself – universities are full of high achieving Asperger’s people, as I guess are Raffles’ boards.

        • Ryan says:

          5 Mar5 March 23:20

          Or even ‘aviosion’ if it also generates Avios in the process.

        • harry says:

          6 Mar6 March 16:31

          rather clever lol 🙂

• Richard says:

  5 Mar5 March 07:35

  Rob why did you use your Curve cad and not your Supercard which I thought had no fees? Thanks

  • Adam says:

    5 Mar5 March 07:52

    I’m guessing he used curve as it can be charged to an amex at the back end which you can’t do with supercard. He probably has a card that gets more in value in points than the 1% charge. Either that or he has a spend target to hit on an amex.

    • John says:

      5 Mar5 March 18:34

      BA amex probably. Rob appears not to churn as he gets his BA amex free if he keeps the plat i think

      • Rob says:

        5 Mar5 March 20:16

        Correct

        • Luke says:

          6 Mar6 March 14:34

          The MasterCard rate is about 1% higher than the Visa rate anyway. So there is probably very little difference in reality.

  • Waribai says:

    5 Mar5 March 07:58

    A chance to use the Amex?

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