We will be traveling to Quebec City in Sept. and want to know which is the better way of paying for hotel, meals. Charge our credit card (and then do they make the exchange?) or as we have done in the past, exchange at a Canadian bank when we arrive in Canada and pay directly with Canadian funds. <BR>Thank you!

Either way is fine and in fact for your Hotel & Restaurant bills you are probably best off to use your credit cards. The Credit Card companies do often charge 2-3% vigorish over and above the official rate but that's not much different from what you could get at the best currency exchange for amounts under $1,000. <BR> <BR>It's definately a good idea to carry Canadian cash around for miscellaneous purchases. We Canadians tend to dislike having US$ given to us in transactions. In the first place it's an inconvenience because, unless we're stashing it away against a future trip to the States, it means calculating it seperately on our bank deposits and/or reconverting it back to Canadian. Furthermore it's an implied slur on our loonie which has suffered enough over the past few years. Because of that you'll find few places giving really fair exchange on US dollars. And since I assume you've been to Canada before I don't have to tell you not to ask 'Is that price in US $?', - If it was it would say so - so don't ask.

Hello Gary, <BR> Are you saying the bellpersons and other service oriented workers would rather, for example, 5 Canadian dollars rather than 5 American dollars as a tip. At the current rate of exchange I find that hard to believe. <BR>A curious Canadian.

Here's my experience: <BR> <BR>As a Canadian girl who used to work for a local cafe when I was in high school, occasionally we'd get American dollars in our tip jar. It was nice, knowing that an American dollar was worth about $1.50 Canadian. Saying that, if the tipper gave us $1.50 Canadian instead of $1 American, it would have been more useful to us. <BR> <BR>While most stores do accept American money as a favour for American tourists, it's very unlikely we'd be able to spend it at a place that gives good exchange. It also feels weird, as a Canadian, making purchases in Canada with American money. That aside, it was usually kept in my drawer at home until I could use it whenever I went down to the USA. Even then, I didn't go down to the USA that often. <BR> <BR>The other day I went shopping in Safeway downtown, and there was an American man buying his groceries with American money. They didn't have the proper settings on the cash register to exchange it, so there was a bit of a hassle (cashier flagging down other staff members... getting proper containers for the money, finding what the exchange rate was, figuring out the exact price in American dollars, then finding out how much Canadian change to give back). The man was kind of laughing at the hassle, because there was a bit of a wait. <BR> <BR>That's why my advice would be to pay in Canadian money as opposed to American money - in some stores it's more of a hassle than anything and it slows everything down. But from what I understand, that's not Jo's question! <BR> <BR>From what I've heard, credit cards are the way to go. If you need some Canadian cash, just withdraw money from a bank machine using your bank card.

That's not Jo's question but it is Amy's, (in a different post). 'Curious', don't be obtuse, of course a bellhop would prefer a $5 US to a $5 CAN tip and what he does with it is take it to the Front Desk and changes it into Canadian. What I am saying, (and this is from someone in the business), is that unlike many third world countries $US are not especially valued street currency here. Either we take it to the bank and exchange it for $CAN or we put it aside for a future trip to the US. But it is not used to buy things here and consequently for most of us we'ld rather get $7.50 CAN than $5US. Even in Niagra Falls if you look closely you'll see that you get a marginally better deal if you pay in $CAN simply because, even though the businesses all keep US bank accounts, they still discount $US more than they should.

Just came back and balanced the statement with the Canadian charges. We used the ATM for cash and our credit card for all other purchases. It was so simple, and the exchange rate averaged about $1.52 CAN to $1 USD. Why would you do it any other way?