Trip to Shanghai

valbg

Hi,

I am about to go on a two week trip to Shanghai in November, to see some college mates and on a general tourism

I am wondering how much cash should I bring with me and if my Clarity MasterCard will be accepted at many places (given that Shanghai is supposed to be an international finance centre) such as tourist attractions, restaurants, etc.? Also, is it better to exchange the money in the UK or bring £ with me to China and exchange there? I read something somewhere about `official (Bank of China) rate` at which all the properly licensed exchanges should operate on, but I am not sure if that is actually better...

Also must-see & must-eat suggestions welcome :beer:

Voyager2002

FWIW I regularly visited China about ten years ago: for business, and also to see a partner there. I would never bring cash: as soon as I arrived at the airport in Beijing the arrivals hall had plenty of ATMs, and my Nationwide visa card always worked flawlessly. Sometimes I arrived in Hong Kong, where things were even easier.

Westin

I'm actually just back from China, although Beijing, Chengdu, Chongquing, Xi'an not Shanghai. I took my Halifax Clarity card with me.

We did have some issues using the card at some outlets. For example in Pizza Hut (I know...but after 5 days we needed to vary our diet!) they would not take the Halifax Clarity card and said they only accepted cards issued by Chinese banks.

We found some regional banks ATM machines also did not accept the card for cash withdrawals. Ones at Bank of China seemed to work but we did find one branch in Chengdu were you strangely had to 'validate' your card in a different type of machine first before using the adjacent ATM.

Rate wise I got 8.36 when I exchanged GBP into RMB before travelling. Just had my Halifax statement in and was getting between 8.78 - 8.89 on ATM withdrawals and purchases.

Most hotels seemed OK exchanging GBP to local RMB. Take clean notes. A friend had problems with a slightly dirty £20 note that had a small tear.

I would suggest a mix of cash and cards would be wise for your trip. Always have some RMB to hand and don't rely purely on your credit card.

Travel safe.

valbg

Yes, also a Chinese friend suggested registering to WeChat Wallet or AliPay as apparently those are widely accepted methods of payment (and i still run scruffy old iPhone 5S so no apple pay for me), however I am not sure if those services accept foreign cards whatsoever so I plan experimenting with those today or tomorrow (that is if I remember my WeChat password since I haven't used the app for a few years now)

Westin

Not sure on either of the above I'm afraid.

Off topic but might be a useful FYI. China still seems to bar Google, Facebook, Messenger and Gmail. You might wish to set up alternative email arrangements if Gmail is your usual choice. Hotmail worked fine and does Bing as a search engine.

Ballard

I took cash but I found it a real pain to exchange. I took brand new notes into a bank and was there for about an hour (roughly 20 minutes waiting and 40 minutes at the counter). Each note had to be fed into a machine to be tested and they kept getting rejected. Perhaps this isn't the norm but after that I decided to use an ATM.

My first exchange was just over the border in Zhuhai and was worryingly with a newsagent as there were no official options there but everything went okay.

At one bank in Guilin I managed to trade unofficially with a customer. She didn't speak any English but she stopped me going to the ATM and with the help of a calculator she offered me a batter rate and then withdrew the Yuan from the ATM.

I don't recall using a credit card as this was pre-Clarity (for me at least)

valbg

Managed to register on WeChat's wallet service, but for the wallet tab to appear in first place I had to have a friend send me 1 yuan "red letter" gift (it is possible that it would 'just appear' if your GPS says you are in China, but I wanted to know beforehand if I'd able to register with a foreign card, which seems to be possible).