Iam planning a Fall trip to Amsterdam and London. I have read that the rate of exchange is $1.18US for $1.00 Euro do I have this right?
Maybe Europe will not be a bargin in the Fall.

Well currency is subject to fluctuation. I think it has 15-20% less value than it did when I was there last year. It all depends on our economy. At the most you can assume that it will top off at $1.20 to 1 euro.

To get the best value from your dollar be sure to get currency from ATM's and charge everything else. You may also want to check with your bank to see what fee they charge for using foreign ATM's and for using foreign credit card overseas.

That's about right, but you can check easily on www.oanda.com

There are other places online also and currency rates are listed in any major newspaper (prob in the business section).

I receive a currency update by email daily and from what I've seen, the highest it's been since the war started is 1.15 USD to 1.00 Euro. Also, that rate has only been within the past week or so.

It seems to mostly fluctuate between 1.12 and 1.15 in the past couple of weeks. I am hoping that it doesn't go much higher.

It's futile to speculate on exchnage rate movement, but FWIIW, when the euro was born in 1999 it started trading at around $1.17. The rate nearly hit that level this week, though has fallen back slightly. The market talk is when the psychological 1.17 level is clearly breached, it could go a lot higher, to 1.25 or more.

The bank wholesale rate today was $1.15 US for 1 euro. The $1.18 must be some retail rate. I tried once to figure just what I paid at ATM's in Europe and the best I could figure was that I was paying about 1% above the bank wholesale rate.

As far as the exchange market is concerned, I don't think anybody really knows how the rates will respond in the near term. The US runs a large negative outflow of payments, so dollars are common and, in terms of demand, they are not as highly sought after as they once were. Contributing to the weak demand for dollars is the low lever of interest rates in the United States. As a result, foreign investors are not eager to buy bonds issued by US businesses or governments.

NO, Europe is not a bargain at the moment. That 140e hotel room that cost me about $125 US two years ago is now pushing $162.
If your house payments had suddenly escalated from $1,000 a month to $1,300 a month you would be moaning loudly.