Please note: My page has moved to http://www.travelaroundwithkris.com – so follow me there as there will only be reposts on this site randomly throughout the month.  New articles are being posted at the new site – with ino on Germany, Portugal and Spain added most recently.

I was trying to figure out how I was going to always have enough cash on hand since our US credit cards don’t work in Beijing.  However, it seems Discover has 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. Hopefully this works.

Update: Well, it was hit or miss, mostly 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.

So if you go to China, plan on bringing cash and exchanging it, at least in my experience.