I'm so confused. I keep reading conflicting reports. Some say airport but most say no to airports and Hotels...any ideas from those that have been recently. We will land and be in Delhi first.
J

We never exchanged dollars for rupees in two months. Always found lots of working ATM machines wherever we were in India.

But what about fees? where they large?

I also used ATMs. My bank reimburses fees, so I don't know what the fees would have been. If you don't have an ATM card that has low/no fees, I'd start looking for one. Generally the best come from brokerages, credit unions or small banks. You need to ask about any fees for use of a foreign ATM, foreign exchange fees, and whether they reimburse for fees charged by the foreign ATM.

So, for me there were no ATM charges, and just a 1% foreign exchange fee.

My first trip to India, 2001, was back in the dark days of TCs. It took an inordinate amount of time to get them changed. I was so pleased on my second trip to just deal with ATMs. Of course, I have a bank account (Cap One) with no foreign conversion fee and no fees for using foreign ATMS. It also reimburses the first $25/month of fees charged by foreign ATMs. Ify our bank charges high fees you need to find a new bank. I only use the Cap One account for travel, and I also have a Credit Union account with low fees as backup.

Dollars are for extreme emergencies...

ATM's are the way to go. You might bring some cash as a back-up. Do get an account that reimburses fees - they are quite common...

You can change currency at the Delhi airport with no problem, there are a number of currency exchanges after passport control

"You can change currency at the Delhi airport with no problem"

I am sure that you CAN, the question is whether you SHOULD.

i will not advise you change your money in Airpot & Hotels becaues you will not get better rate of Exchange.
In City there are so many money changers and you can get better rate of exchange.

regards
raj, delhi

I think based on your other thread that you are in the Houston area. Last spring (April 2013) we ordered rupees from the American Express office in Houston, got a excellent exchange rate.

I figured about how much we would need for tickets, tipping and a few extras and ordered that much. Since our hotel (B&B) car and driver expenses were already paid, there was really very little extra. We charged most of our extras including most things we bought. Ate our meals at the hotel or lunch baskets packed by them, I have a couple if food allergies that make eating in Asian countries difficult. On this trip we did use an ATM out side of one the markets in Delhi.

I know many people find that ATMs always work for them, but we have had enough issues finding one that works with our card, was working or was where we were when we needed money, we always take the currency of the country with us. We do have a card with no fees to us, but you still have to mess with an ATM. I know some don't mind, but...we prefer to get our start up money before we leave home. Plus we got there at 1AM in the morning after an eternity on the plane and were only interested in finding the hotel greeting agent, the car and getting to the hotel!

As for hotels etc...DH always checks the exchange rate..if is fair he makes the exchange, if not he looks elsewhere.

You may (or may not) have got a good exchange rate from Amex, but what fees did you pay? I notice they don't even 'fess up to the fees on their website.

Just asked DH, The rate of exchange was better than we got in India the one time we did it there and the fee a flat fee was between 1 and 2%.

How ever we are traveling again in Feb and he said he is not sure what we will do as American Express has closed their Houston office recently. He has not yet checked into the new place he found so what I wrote above is NOT current now, Sorry.

He always checks out the money part of the trip (cc fees, exchange rates etc) 9 ways to Sunday. It will not help JuliaJane out, but he will look for another source as we do not like to arrive in a country with out some money...at least for a taxi and an emergency. We have had to many problems with ATMs. Plus it is just plain annoying to have to find a place to change money before we can do anything.

I exchanged with an ICICI Bank. I would never exchange at an airport as you usually get the worst rates, I found it easier to use this bank as they had travel money so it was competitive against other currency exchange places.

We lucked out and got a travel card from BofA just before we left that has no foreign transaction fees and gave us 0% interest for a year...guess which card we used while in India. as for cash, we do most of our banking with a credit union that reduces all transaction fees, and we tried several big Indian banks' ATMs while traveling, finally finding that HBSC worked for us every time. (they seem to be everywhere)

Before we left we changed some about $300 at the airport at home, just to have some rupees as our flight arrived well past midnight in Delhi and we didn't know what to expect. Not a great exchange rate, but even though I knew we would have a driver waiting for us and that was flawless, you never know.

Airport currency exchange windows may have poor rates, but the ATMs at the airport pay the same as all of the other ATMs in the area.

Yeah, we knew that-- we'd been watching the exchange rate for months, and I would only suggest it as an emergency tactic. In our case, we knew we'd be arriving after 22 hours of travel and really didn't want to have to deal with looking for an ATM. Maybe it was only $200, but it was good to have some rupees just in case we needed them. In retrospect, we didn't actually need rupees until the end of our second day in Delhi, and then it was only a very small amount for entrance to the National Train Museum! ATMs have been the greatest invention to make travel anywhere in the world easier.