Exchange rates

[iainpeden]

I'm off to the USA in May - is it ok to thank DT on here for making the dollar plunge on the money markets?

[Andy Marden]

Erm, that means you get more dollars for your money.
It's at a 7-month high at the moment.

[iainpeden]

Exactly!

[raptor9]

Don't buy until last minute. It could get even better for you!!.

[slogen51]

I don't buy cash over here now - just use your credit card or get cash from hole in the wall at Wallmart - they have very good commercial rates on conversion

[iainpeden]

Useful - thanks

[slogen51]

Certainly in bars and restaurants i much prefer to use cash as I don't like the way they keep your card open for tips , sometimes the waiter or waitress will take your card away to process the bill which I also don't like therefore I much prefer a stash of cash

[raptor9]

Very unwise to let your credit card out of your sight. I did it and it was cloned at Cape Town Airport by an AVIS employee!!!.

[H.A.Bucken]

It's decades ago now, but one time when skiing the French Alps I used my "switch" card (?) to get local currency. It took weeks before the transaction showed on a statement and during that time the £ got quite a lot stronger than the frank. Again it's decades since my passe expired and that sort of thing won't happen now.
My one regret was not helicopter-skiing in the Canadian Rockies- no chance now in the autumn of my life.
Enjoy your holls.

[iainpeden]

I tend to take a mix of cash, pre loaded cash card and Nationwide Clarity card, which doesn’t charge for overseas transactions.

[Sparts99]

If I ever go to the US again I will never let my card out of my sight. My card was taken a few times in restaurants, decent ones not cheap diners. I signed for the amounts on the receipts they came back with so no added tips but for weeks afterwards I had loads of attempted frauds on it from all over the world. I looked at some emails on the hotel computer set aside for guests to do that, logged out properly and restarted the computer to be sure when I'd finished, my email was hacked, that caused no end of problems for months.

[MADWOP]

As an aside to all of the above.

In October/November 2003 on the last night of our trip (a Sunday) four of us went out for a meal in Pheonix.
When it came to paying the bill my credit card was declined (I can't remember the reason why) however after several attempts and blind panic
our friends paid the bill with their credit card.
Knowing that we had not spent a penny on our card i.e full credit available we were really worried.
We even tried to withdraw cash from an ATM - no joy
As soon as we returned to the hotel we called the help line on the card.
To cut a long story short it was to do with the time difference and Sunday night/Monday morning in the U.K.
Apparently British banks do their computing/accounting overnight Sunday into Monday in the early hours which coincided with us trying
to use our card in Pheonix on Sunday evening (8 hours time diff.) so our card (anybody's card) will not work if you time it just right (wrong)!!
Sure enough in the morning we tried the ATM - all o.k.
Our friend's card had worked because it was an American bank.

Hope this is of some use to some future travellers

Mike.