My sis told me the Alipay locally is only for China Alipay use. Although i do not know the difference. Anyway, i have used Alipay and Wechat that link to with WISE card in China, no problem.

Back to you previous question, believe the alipay in app store is international version and different from china version, only works within china. For currency I just let it auto convert. Really depends if you think if ringgit rate is good or may increasing or dropping value.

Alipay and WeChat pay works for me 99%of the time. But need to used to it for example select bus or mrt and download digital bus card in different city. And install different mini program in WeChat for different bike rental companies.
Bring some cash especially smaller change like 1/5/10/20..can pay cash but they retailer may not have small chances.

This post has been edited by azack: May 20 2025, 04:36 AM

I didn't try tng. I think previous posts have someone said no problem. Btw, WeChat pay success rate is higher than alipay.
Hotel online credit card booked. The rest of the spending all qrcode alipay or WeChat. I only use cash at first arrival for mrt as I didn't know how to configure alipay for mrt. Once I figured out, basically while trip cash free.

I would suggest all of the family member have a smart phone with digital payment mode installed.

For me, I only bought data eSim from trip.com, have many option. Uness you expect that need to make call while in china. I think data Sim is good enough.