Folks,

I'm writing to revive and update the money shortage issue in BsAs in particular and Argentina in general.

Here is a recent article from The UK Guardian.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...-cash-shortage

Any further information would be most appreciated.

Unless they wish to take a bus, I don't see why tourists would need peso coins and certainly not the small denominations.

Another issue could well be that, with inflation, the metal value of the coins could well be higher than their monetary value. Just one of my crazy ideas.

Avrooster

Still crazy after all these years? (LOL)

Actually, you never know when or what you might for coins. Maybe tips, buy a beer, newspaper, etc...

Here's a bit more research.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123111629554952657.html

We actually did run into minor issues not having coins. We weren't aware of the shortage when we visited Argentina in November. Several times we couldn't get into a museum or gallery due to lack of change. A few times in a bakery or 2 they just gave us the food after we gave them whatever change we had. When we finally realized it wasn't an isolated incident we started hoarding our change.

Here's a thread on the coin shortage from TA a few months ago. sounds like not much has changed.
http://tinyurl.com/bw7aau

Rastaguytoday:

Yeah, and getting a little crazier every day!

Coins for TIPS??? If you tip someone in the US less than 60 cents (one two-peso bill), you'd better have a bodyguard! LOL!!

Beer or newspaper? They are supposed to give you change. Just don't pay with a very large bill.

The same goes for "a museum or gallery", yestravel. I believe the problem must have been a lack or smaller bills, not coins. Am I correct?

No, AV, it was coins, not bills. We knew to have small bills. We ran into the problem in the NW much more so then in BA. A lot of time we just rounded up since they didn't have the change to give us back for whatever we were buying. By the time we got back to BA we were aware of the issue and pretty much avoided it. We even wondered if people were just not wanting to make change or we ran into them when they had little change. When we got back to the States we read about the problem in the WPost.

It certainly wasn't a big deal for us, but worth knowing about if you're planning on traveling to Arg.

You're absolutely right about tipping anyone less than 60 cents --u'd better be prepared for an onslaught of dirty looks and even a few choice words!

Thank you for the explanation, yestravel. I understand how it could be worse in the NW.

And to think we brought our extra coins home and glued them in our trip albums!
tptr