From UK with GBP account. Traveling in Japan so opened JPY account and exchanged into it. So far each transaction in Tokyo has come through in USD which is account I don’t have and then hit my GBP account not JPY. I don’t want to hit the GBP account as I hav a load of yen I bought that I want to use. Please help
Hi there.
If the ATM (or card terminal) asks whether you would like to complete the transaction ‘with conversion’ or ‘without conversion’, you should ALWAYS choose ‘without conversion’.
As a rule of thumb, you should always opt to be charged in the local currency of the country you’re in! If you’re in Thailand choose Thai Baht, in Spain, Euros or in the United States, Dollars.
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There’s no request for conversion One was contactless and the other by signature not Pin I would always choose “without conversion” if offered
Hey @andyh 
If you happen to have a copy of the card receipt (not the store one)… Does it show the total amount in JPY, USD or GBP?
Both store receipts are in JPY
There were no additional card receipts. Sorry I didn’t read your post carefully enough
Unless you explicitly tell the store agent to charge in Yen (Good luck), it’ll convert to just about any random currency the terminal is set up to work with — especially at int’l retail chains. Uniqlo charges in USD for instance.
Source: Traveling across different Japanese cities for months and never had any problems in terms of R acceptance.
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Happened to me too in some stores which uses Chip+Pin.
But I already had all the money in JPY, and found out that their exchange rate was way too weird. For example, for something which was showed 4500 JPY I paid 40 USD and were actually taken 4300 JPY :))
Are you saying the authorisation is done in USD and taken from your normal balance, but the amount clears in JPY? At Revolut rate?
The amount was debuted in USD, hence taken from the JPY account but in USD at revolut rate. So double exchange (once the shop and once revolut).
But overall I found out that the amount taken from the JPY account for that’s USD debited transaction was smaller than the actual JPY price of the product
Why would they debit a card in USD though 
that seems so stupid, especially when the BIN is UK
Doesn’t matter the BIN.
In the Japanese culture the USD is the main currency. They barely know about something else.
It’s policy of the shop. Having more than half customers Americans then they will charge any foreign card in USD.
But wasn’t bad. I paid 4300 JPY (taken from JPY account in USD) and the price of the product was 4500 JPY. Lol. So, good things happens sometimes 
That new MasterCard mandate that’s coming through is going to ruin your day then I guess! When DCC is a thing you’re able to reliably opt out of 
I did a lot of shopping in several different Japanese cities and my AMEX always got charged with Yen.
Could you please give more info (or sources) about this MasterCard mandate? Thank you.
Is it even worth using AMex when not in GBP/USD? Unless you have a USD native card because AMex do double conversion on any non-USD currency.
Source is @anon33247966, I asked him to give me some more information but he hasn’t done so. I’m currently waiting on Mastercard themselves but it’s been a week now and I’ve heard nothing.
It is an EUR card that was issued by AMEX Europe.
I am not sure what you mean with “worth”. I could use it to pay all over Japan, it is a credit card plus it supports Apple Pay. So that is good enough in my book.
I did not know about the “double conversion” before - but I think that does not have a big impact for me as an user.
You get a slightly worse exchange rate than the VISA one, besides that I don’t think there’s much impact