Exchanging Dollars to Euros
 

Hi all. We are planning a trip to France in late May and were wondering if anyone had any insight into exchanging money. We found a great place here in NYC that has great rates to exchange. I've heard a lot of people say it's best to use your atm card and exchange once you get there but I'm worried the Euro to Dollar is going to keep going up. I guess you never know with this kind of thing but we were thinking of just exchanging all of our money right now.

Thoughts?

Have you figured out that those "great rates to exchange" often come with commission fees. Now, are you actually telling us you can walk right in and exchange money and they give this "great" (compared to what, exactly????) rate and they do this FOR FREE?

that bridge still for sale?

The euro has been going down in relation to the dollar, not up.

Check carefully about the place you found in NYC that you think will give you a great rate. Compare the rate they quote you with the official rate - I use www.xe.com - also find out what their service charges are.

In my decades of travel, I've never found a deal where it was better to get foreign currency in the US than getting it once you get there.

Thanks for your replies. This place in NYC has no commission fee if you exchange over $350. The reason we were thinking of exchanging now is because the exchange rate keeps going up. I guess it's a crap shoot either way.

>>has no commission fee<<

Yes - but what is their exchange rate?

Two weeks ago when the rate was about 1.05 (according to the Yahoo financial site), we pre-paid for one of the 3 gites we've reserved this year, using a pay-pal type system that Gites-de-France has available. We paid exactly the 1.05 rate using our Capital-One credit card. Yahoo now says the exchanage rate is 1.09. I think the 1.05 is likely the lowest we'll see and I personally think it will be above or at 1.09 by the time we get to France in June. If I spend $5,000 on my upcoming trip at a 4% difference in rates (1.05 vs 1.09) that's $200. Hot a huge amount, but enough to pay for a very nice dinner.

Bank of America here in the US charges about 5-6% over the rate on Yahoo. My ATM card in France charges a 2% fee. We charge most of our purchases on Capital One, which charges 0%.

Stu Dudley

If you want to approach this emotionally, you method would work.
If you are interested in getting the most Euro out of fixed dollar, you need to approach objectively. Unlike other things in life, you can evaluate this objectively at a given time point. Ask "the place" exactly how much Euro you will get. Look at the official exchange rate on that day and subtract the foreign transaction fee your bank charges. You have non-emotional number to number comparison.

So you say you don't know which way the rate moves. No one know. If you make a wholesale change, you are betting that the dollars would go weaker. Gamblers do this but not investors. The investors to dollar cost averaging to avoid extremes. You do this by getting money out of ATM as you go.

No one knows where rates will go. There is not a lot of pressure now to drive the euro up enough to make this kind of gamble worth it. You also incur a risk carrying a lot of cash.

If the rate with expenses is as good as you say go ahead and change $400 now.

've heard a lot of people say it's best to use your atm card and exchange once you get there but I'm worried the Euro to Dollar is going to keep going up.>

Yes you have it bckwards - many experts expect the Euro to keep sinking vis-a-vis the US dollar - thus buying euros now at say $1.10 or so may mean in a few weeks or months that could be even below par - some experts are pointing to the euro reverted to 1990s value of in the 80-85 cent per $ range.

Thus using ATMs once there and credit cards for purchases is probably your best bet - and if there is an oil crisis caused by the Yemen problem blocking much of Europe's oil coming around to the Suez Canal the dollar always goes higher in that case.

That said in years of watching exchange rates and expert predictions it often seems to turn out the opposite.

I'd wait to Europe to exchange dollars - makes a lot cents!

Going UP? LOL Well, yes, I'm sure eventually it will again.
Use the ATM.
IF you must, get X small amount to have in your pocket upon landing.

I always take some large US bills with me in the never-yet-found case of not finding an ATM in an airport - there will always be an airport bank open that will manually exchange dollars for enough for getting out of the airport and into town where ATMs are ubiquitous.

It sounds from your post that you really want to change some money now in NY, so I agree with tom_mn's advice -- change $400 and then you can stop thinking about it. I always save euros at the end of a European trip so that I have about 200 to get me started upon my next arrival. For me it's just one less thing to be concerned about at the airport.

I take 100E to get me into the country.

<The Euro today gained a lot of value against the US Dollar. US Durable Goods figures (massive market orders, for example planes and large volumes of cars which take a long time to produce), came in lower than expected. Signaling a lack of confidence concerning the durability of the US recovery. This sent the Dollar down against all currency pairings, giving the Euro a little boost.>
Three of us bought 1500 last week for upcoming trips hedging our bets, no fee so cost me 1.13. I like having money in my pocket. If it goes back down so be it. It was no fee if we bought over 1000 euros. I just wish we had done it when it was 1.05. I put a deposit on apartment at 1.14 couple of months ago.

When you think about this realistically, unless you are purchasing a big-ticket item like a car, or investing in property in France, the rate of exchange at this point in time - and even for the foreseeable future - is not that much of an issue. You're only talking about a few cents...

Go to your bank, buy enough euros to get youselves to wherever it is you're staying, have enough left over to buy something to eat and drink for two days. That's all the cash you need to bring. The rest you should get from ATMs and just enjoy your vacation instead of obsessing about pennies.

Where in NYC did you exchange your USD?

-On Sept 22 last year, we paid a French hotel bill & the exchange rate was 1.29

-Two weeks ago we paid for our gite & the rate was 1.05

If we spend 5,000E in France for our vacation

1.29 X 5,000 = $6,600
1.05 X 5,000 = $5,250

$1,400 is about what one round-trip ticket costs from SFO.

Stu Dudley

It's just another financial transaction. Buy low and sell high is of course the way to do it. The only question is to know when the euro has or will hit its lowest point. Nobody knows that. Most analysts expect that in the long run, the euro will at some point in the relatively near future hit parity with the USD. Of course it may not.

My attitude remains the same; que sera sera...whatever will be will be. Upon arrival in Italy at the end of May, I will pull €20 from an ATM and use my credit cards for everything and see if, as usually happens, I return home with the €20 bank note still firmly folded in my wallet, well I'll just be a step ahead for my next trip.

While none of us have control over the exchange rate, what we do have control over is how high the fees are that we pay.

flpab is happy to have exchanged at a rate of 1.13, while others here have gotten rate of 1.05. They may tell you there is no fee, but then the make their money off an inflated exchange rate.

Amtravelbug, I understand your concern. Just days before we left for Switzerland the franc snd dollar were about 1:1. As we are getting ready to leave, it's closer to $1 = .96 francs. I see it going up for a while anyway.