disneydiva

My sister and I are going to Paris Sept 25 to Oct 3. I wanted to know if anyone remembers what their Hotels were exchanging money at. American or Canadian.

Last year I was in Barbados & Rome and noticed my hotel had a steady rate for the duration of my vacations. (1US = 1.98 Barbados and 1Euro = 1.25 US for Rome)

Plus is it better to use American or Canadian? I'm Canadian but I have an American account since I like to travel. So either is fine with me.

Thanks for any help or advice you may supply.

DisneyDiva

SalB

I'll let our money experts answer this, but I will tell you that we use the ATM to get money. It's a lot cheaper than exchanging money at a hotel. You might consider it if you're concerned about the exchange rate. Be sure you know your PIN in numbers because French ATMs don't have letters on them.

Patrick

I don't get your question. The simple answer is it doesn't make any difference what rate your hotel is exchanging money at. NEVER change money at your hotel. Pay with a credit card or else get euro out of the ATM from your checking account. I can assure you it will save you money over paying with foreign (to them) currency!

brookwood

Two places not to change money are airport booths that are human operated and hotels. I have seen rates as much as 10% less favorable to the "pigeon" when compared with the wholesale bankrate. If you don't know the approximate wholesale bankrate, you are a high percentage candidate to get took.

ira

Hi dd,

There are so many ATMs that it is not a good idea to change money at a hotel.

We were in Ital last September, when the E was $1.16. It was lower in the Summer. If you were paying $1.25, you were losing 8% or more.

Underhill

The reason that it's unwise to exchange money at your hotel is that the hotel rate tends to be the worst around. If you don't want to use an ATM, you could go into a bank and at least get the bank rate--or check out the exchange places in many areas. You still won't get a very good rate at those, but it will almost certainly beat your hotel's.

JonJon

Now that you've been THOROUGHLY admonished aboutn where NOt to change money (with which I fully agree) my advice is to think about the exchange rate later since there's no telling how much better, or worse, it will get.

RufusTFirefly

No one can make a blanket statement about where it's best to exchange your money. On our trip to Italy, two of our hotels gave the published, official exchange rate (the same one you get with credit cards and ATMS) with no fees or charges as a service to their guests. We did better exchanging at these hotels than using a credit card (with its minimum 1% fee)or an ATM machine (with possible bank service charges). The other three hotels we stayed at gave terrible rates, so we went elsewhere or used credit cards. It never hurts to ask.

We had a similar experiences in Costa Rica and in Germany. Some hotels do give the official, published rate with no fees or charges--again as a courtesy to their guests.

Jennifer0702

If you don't want to use an ATM, the exchange bureaus by the Louvre used to have excellent exchange rates. Avoid changing money at the airport...or even a hotel.

m_kingdom

As others have pointed out what they were exchanging at then bears no relation to what they are exchanging at now!

Also as you seem to be unaware the EURO is not specific to Paris, they use it in the rest of France too, and in Italy, Spain, Portugal, and many other EU Nations too.

As to the benefit of using Canadian or US dollars - you're going on an holiday not buying a property so presumably you will not be spending in excess of 10000USD. When the EUR rate is favourable buy lots of them, when it isn't don't.

bob_brown

I keep reading these reports claiming, "I got an excellent exchange rate." How do you know you got a good rate if you don't compare it to the bank wholesale rate?
If you have no benchmark of comparison, then what is your basis for making the claim? Good versus bad in this context is relative to the best available rate.

I usually check the Internet or a newspaper such as the Herald Tribune to see what is recent, but most days I just assume that the best avaialable rate is with an ATM card at a major bank. I check often enough to know that without looking all over town for a couple of hours my best compromise is an ATM.

I know one thing, if the rate is steady, somebody is making a nice profit. Otherwise, they don't stay in business. I bet wildly fluctuating currency drives them nuts.

If you within 1% of the bank wholesale rate, it should make no difference whether it is Canadian or American.
Those rates adjust for differences in demand and support almost instantly because the computers that calculate the amounts respond to worldwide conditions continually.

We are at something of a disadvantage because Visa will not tell anyone outside the network just how the rate is pegged for a given conversion. I tried to find out once, and after an exchange that got barbed, I was told to go away. Master Card at least dispensed with the pleasantries and said bluntly: We will not tell you.
So much for the average Joe trying to pry into the secrets of International banking.

Even brokers at major firms tell me it is "black magic."

Michel_Paris

Hi,
My two cents worth. If you are going to bring money with you (travellers cheques I assume), buy them in Euros. My practice in the past was US$ travellers cheques over Cdn$, since the US$ seemed to be more acceptable. Now, why pay two currency conversions ($Cdn to $US, then US$ to Euros) with the bank taking a cut each time. Get Euros, if you must.

Go to a any bank in Canada and buy some Euro cash, enough to carry you over for your first day or two (transportation to hotel, meal,etc..) Then, first opportunity, go to a 'name brand' bank, for example BNP or Société Générale and cash enough of your travellers cheques to get you through the next few days. There are lots of bank branches in Paris, ignore the "convenience" using the hotel, its just not necessary and the costs add up. But....as everyone here will confirm, ATMs are a smooth way of accessing your acccounts back home. Easy as can be to use, and good conversion rates. also measn you don't have to carry/hide large amounts of cash. I would confirm, but I believe you should have a 4-digit password on your ATM card, and confirm with your bank on its international use, to be sure that they don't "flag" your card if they see international activity on it. Believe me, you won't find access to cash a problem.

Hope this helps,
Mike

Christina

I'll admit I've never exchanged TCs at a hotel in Paris, so I wouldn't know specifically -- but I do rather doubt they give good rates, although I have been in hotels (in other countries, like Mexico), that did give better rates than the banks.

I do exchange TCs in Paris, a lot though, and in my experience, the best rates are at Bureaux de Change in Paris. Parisian banks most definitely do NOT give you bank rate for exchanging money (and many won't do it for walkins off the street, tourists, anyway, as they don't want that business) and they often have worse rates than the best exchange bureaux.

I've posted several of the best spots in Paris to exchange money before, where you get about the same as an ATM. I don't want to again and figure people probably won't go there anyway, but the Parisvision office near the Opera is one of them. Someone above who said some places on rue de Rivoli also matches my experience -- some of them are pretty good, surprisingly. St-Germain and Montmartre and near St-Michel are the worst (that I've seen).

I don't ever take TCs in euros and don't know why you'd get a better rate doing that unless Canadian banks typically exchange money at a very favorable rate with little markup. If so, they are different than the US banks (or places that sell euro TCs).

RufusTFirefly

bob_brown--the wholesale rate is readily available on-line and in the financial section of newspapers. That's how I know what the rates are while travelling, and I would guess some others who post at fodors also check.