Mastercard rate on Public (Bank) Holidays

Terry_Towelling

dj1471 wrote: »

How could I possibly have been referring to Curve? Nobody had mentioned Curve and you were asking about cards that use the MasterCard exchange rate, which Curve doesn't!!! My response relates to what you asked, not what was in your head.

If you're going to be pedantic at least pay attention.

Sorry, dj1471, that was my fault. OceanSound mentioned Curve in their second post (following another thread where they'd had an odd experience with Curve and Malaysian Airlines) and that made me realise that they hadn't understood the reason why it had happened, or how 'traditional' credit cards work when it comes to processing foreign currency transactions.

OceanSound then thought I was referring to your post with my post and we are where we are now. I'm still not convinced they appreciate the processing flow from auth to clearing or why there can be a delay between the two - or that Curve is different because it is built to clear at the auth stage (if auth is sought).

fifeken

OceanSound wrote: »

The message I saw ealier 'Present day's rate is available at 2pm EST' is a load of tosh.

If it had said "Present day's rate isn't available until 2pm EST" than you'd be correct.

As it's written, it's correct as the rate will be available at 2pm (as well as 1pm and 3pm etc.

OceanSound

fifeken wrote: »

If it had said "Present day's rate isn't available until 2pm EST" than you'd be correct.

As it's written, it's correct as the rate will be available at 2pm (as well as 1pm and 3pm etc.

That makes sense. So, when someone says tickets will be available at 10am. They really mean 'as well as 11am, 9am etc..' .

You really need to read OP, especially the part below (with special emphasis on the bold writing):

Also, I noticed something peculiar with the mastercard converter yesterday. Usually, you can only see rates for the previous day. However, yesterday (Saturday 20 April 2019) I was able to see the rate for that day (Saturday 20 April 2019). Never seen that before.

Today when I check (local time in Malaysia: 13:05, EST time=01:05) the mastercard currency calculator is only allowing me to select 20 April 2019, however, there is a message 'Present day's rate is available at 2pm EST'. I've personally never seen this message before. Have you?

Terry_Towelling

OceanSound wrote: »

You really need to read OP, especially the part below:

Also, I noticed something peculiar with the mastercard converter yesterday. Usually, you can only see rates for the previous day. However, yesterday (Saturday 20 April 2019) I was able to see the rate for that day (Saturday 20 April 2019). Never seen that before.

Today when I check (local time in Malaysia: 13:05, EST time=01:05) the mastercard currency calculator is only allowing me to select 20 April 2019, however, there is a message 'Present day's rate is available at 2pm EST'. I've personally never seen this message before. Have you?

We've read your OP and we get what you are saying. People will only have noticed this if they are obsessing with the MasterCard Ex-rates in and around the times they are due to update. The fact nobody else is reporting back to you on this issue is because nobody else is doing that.

Additionally, people will only see this message if they click on a date in the pop-up calendar that is 'greyed out'. A 'greyed out' date indicates that day's rate is not available, so most people won't click on it in the first place.

It's already been suggested to you that the 2pm EST update point is a deadline by which the rates will be updated, rather than a specific point at which they will only be updated. It's also been suggested that early updates at the weekend are probably to be expected because the rate is already known as it is the same as on the preceding Friday.

Most forum users (I would guess) will have 'traditional' plastic cards where you (often) get an auth message (to approve the transaction) followed by a clearing message several days later (to actually take the money). The ex-rate on the date of the purchase is irrelevant because it's the ex-rate on the transaction processing/clearing date that is used to actually take the money. We none of us know exactly when that processing is going to happen because that's down to the speed with which the retailer and his processing bank put things through.

You are obviously stuck on this issue because of your Malaysian Airlines experience with Curve. MasterCard rates are irrelevant there because Curve doesn't use them. Curve is also different because it uses a system (as explained in previous posts) that effectively takes your money at the authorisation stage. The later clearing message will still come through to Curve but they don't use it - except to match it up with the prior authorisation message.

Once again, your Malaysian Airlines issue was caused by the airline authorising a single amount and then splitting that amount in two for clearing. That caused the system to 'fall over' because the two clearing messages couldn't be matched to the original single authorisation message and Curve viewed them as completely new transactions that had never had a prior authorisation. Luckily, they have built their systems such that 'non-matched' authorisation messages are identified and you don't get double-charged.

fifeken

OceanSound wrote: »

That makes sense. So, when someone says tickets will be available at 10am. They really mean 'as well as 11am, 9am etc..' .

You really need to read OP, especially the part below (with special emphasis on the bold writing):

Maybe English isn't your first language, but the sentence means as I described it. The 2pm is an end point they are imposing on themself. If it's ready before then as per your case, then it's ready then too.