ATMs in Egypt keep asking Accept or Decline Conversion - what does that mean? Shows high charges for this
At Hurghada airport, the Banque du Caire ATM gave me the conversion choice. The “accept” option was highlighted in green, so I nearly pressed it. Luckily I’d read about DCC. I chose decline and got charged in EGP instead. Revolut handled the conversion at the market rate. If you press accept, you’re paying the ATM’s inflated exchange. Always press decline.
In Luxor, I used an HSBC ATM near the temple. It asked “accept conversion?” I hit accept thinking it was required, but then I saw my Wise statement and realized I’d overpaid massively. Next time I declined, and the difference was obvious. Egypt is cheap for travel, but don’t let ATMs sneak extra costs. Always decline.
Same thing happened in Giza with a National Bank of Egypt machine. The screen wording was scary, like “Declining may cause extra charges.” Total nonsense-it’s just trying to push conversion. Always decline. My Revolut app showed a perfect rate when I declined, but when I accepted once, the markup was close to 11%. Egypt ATMs are notorious for this trick.
In Cairo, I used a Banque Misr ATM. It asked if I wanted to “accept conversion” into USD. That’s DCC again. If you accept, the ATM sets its own inflated rate. If you decline, you’re billed in Egyptian pounds (EGP), and your card provider does the exchange fairly. On a 5,000 EGP withdrawal, saying yes cost me around $20 more. Always decline in Egypt.