Buying Euros in the US
 

My wife wants to get some euro before we go, where is the best place to exchange in US.<BR><BR>Michael

there's a booth on the corner of 45 and Main that can handle this. Even gives good rates and a free fanny pack with every $500 exchanged.

Consider your local American Express office. I wouldn't recommend purchasing more than "about one day's income" before you get to Europe. It's going to cost you about 5% more than if you wait, but convenience and peace of mind is worth something to lots of people.<BR><BR>Best wishes,<BR><BR>Rex<BR><BR>

Don't buy a lot here - the exchange rate is crap. Wait and get it of your ATM or chargecard when you get to your airport destination.

Out of interest, I checked the exchange booth at Hartsfield Airport in Atlanta last week. The cashier was selling euro notes for $1.00 per euro. The wholesale rate that day was about 90 cents US for 1 euro. That is a markup of about 10%.<BR>I usually wait, or get at most the minimum that the bank will sell me. !!<BR>

That is interesting while in LAX last week they were selling at 99C to euro and buying at 87c

topping<BR>

I recently checked 2 different brokers here in Houston -- American Express and Thomas Cook (Travelex) -- as well as www.oanda.com and my local Chase bank. Oanda and my local bank had the best rates. My local bank was able to have the amount of Euros I wanted delivered to my branch bank by the next business day for me to pick up. There was only $2.00 difference if I had gone with Oanda. They could deliver the money to me within 2 business days.

Where are there Oanda locations? or is it by mail order?<BR>

betty, your post is worthless without telling us the rates you were offered. $2.00 difference doesn't mean much if the rate of exchange was already something like 100 euro for $99.00 US.

If you have an account at Citibank, you can order them there for a decent rate.

What do you consider a decent rate, fc? Apparently 5 to 7 % over cost? A rather expensive proposition if you are getting more than a few euro.

Dear unknown one, I purchased my Euro several weeks ago, so the rate is of little consequence today. My point is that there was quite a bit of difference in the rates from the brokers, but not much difference between my bank and buying thru Oanda online. And, I believe the purchase was for $200 dollars because that is the minimum for Oanda.

Since no independent person can get euros "at cost", 5-7% over bank rate is not that expensive. YOu can't get them for less than about 1-2% over bank rate at minimum and many people pay more than that when using an ATM due to the ATM fees (which range from about 2-5% of the amount if you get $100). Since many people like to have about equivalent of USD100 upon arrival -- gosh, that's an excess expenditure of about $2-4 !!!!!! over using an ATM. Such an expensive proposition, better cancel the trip for another year. xxx is a good description of your thinking.

"You can't get them for less than about 1-2% over bank rate at minimum..." Where do you get this rate????