Hi,
I’m a U.S. citizen currently visiting Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I’m planning on traveling to Bangkok, Thailand next.
So upon arrival in Kuala Lumpur, I realized that almost every business/store did not accept my Discover Card and most online services didn’t either (Shopee, Lazada, UMobile, etc). This is poor planning on my part, of course (I didn’t bring a back-up card but did bring plenty of cash for exchange).
Discover did provide me with a list of of ATMs that would accept my card. But this list was mostly inaccurate. Most of the ATMs on the list declined my transaction attempts. The only ATMs that ended up working were MEPS ATMs (and not even all of them for some reason). And there aren’t many MEPS ATMs in Kuala Lumpur in the first place (quite a few of the ones listed on Google Maps are out-of-service or don’t even exist).
So since I’ve been here, I’ve had to rely almost entirely on cash payments (with the exception of Grab Food/Grab Car which accepts Discover) and make periodic trips out to a working MEPS ATM.
Needless to say, this has been a bit of an inconvenience. Though not the end of the world. At least I wasn’t stranded. (And again, my fault for not doing my research before leaving).
So my question is this: Does anyone know anything about Discover Card acceptability at ATMs in Bangkok?
There are a couple of threads on this topic on TripAdvisor which basically say that Discover card is not widely accepted, which I expected, but a few places might. However, these threads are several years old (so who knows if the situation has changed since then?)
I’m anticipating that my Discover Card will NOT be accepted at most establishments, just like here in Kuala Lumpur, but it’d just be nice to get confirmation from someone who recently used their Discover Card at an ATM in Bangkok and was able to successfully use Cash Advance (and also let me know the name of the ATM please!)
Thank you very much!
