Using U.S. Credit Cards in China? Not so much.

Using U.S. Credit Cards in China? Not so much.

When I was planning to go to China, getting money was a concer. I was trying to figure out how I was going to always have enough cash/credit on hand since our US credit cards don’t work in Beijing.  Discover worked out a deal with UnionPay (a major China CC) to accept Discover cards at any place that accepts UnionPay.  There are instructions for how to do this (and a little card you can print out that tells shopkeepers how to do it) on their website.
So I went to China with that as a potential option, but made sure to have plenty of cash as well (and that turned out to be a very good idea).  It was hit or miss with Discover, but predominantly miss.  I successfully used the card with no issues to get my SIM card at the airport.  After that I was able to use it one more time, but every other time I tried to use it, even with the instructions, no one could seem to process it.

So YMMV but probably won’t be very good, so do bring cash, as annoying as that is.