hoff@ihuxe.UUCP (j. hoff) (05/31/85)
[ sorry, this might be posted twice on some machines ] A wise young supervisor once told me that I should ALWAYS use my American Express or VISA when traveling out of the U.S. Firstly, you don't have to physically exchange money back and forth, and secondly, chances are that at lease one of the establishments you have visited will loose/not charge your credit card company your purchase. I took his advice when I went to Australia in 1983. And his info was correct. I put about $1000.00 on my American Express and the company (of course, over the next four months) only received about $750.00. Don't worry about waiters/cashiers not knowing the rate of exchange. My experience was that even the 5 year olds knew the rate! But this was in Sydney. Julie Hoff AT&T Bell Laboratories ihnp4!ihuxe!hoff
debbiem@rruxe.UUCP (D. McBurnett) (06/01/85)
>A wise young supervisor once told me that I should ALWAYS use my >American Express or VISA when traveling out of the U.S. Firstly, >you don't have to physically exchange money back and forth, and >secondly, chances are that at lease one of the establishments you >have visited will loose/not charge your credit card company your >purchase. I would not count on the bills not catching up with you when travelling to Britain. Although it takes up to six months in some cases for the bills to finally show up on our Diner's Club, they ALWAYS do. One thing we did notice, though: The last batch of charges must have been missing information on them or something, because they didn't show on the bill in the normal manner, and the exchange rate that ended up getting applied was the exchange rate at the time the charge was applied to the bill, not the exchange rate that existed at the time the charge was made. This gives a little further food for thought: you might want to consider whether the currency of a country you plan to visit is trending upwards or downwards relative to the dollar. A currency gaining strength may end up costing you more money in the end in the circumstances described above if you use your charge card. When we travel abroad, we always do a little speculating on the exchange rate ahead of time. If a currency is trending up and looks to continue that way, we try to buy traveller's checks well in advance of our trip, and as much as we'll need for our expenses in that country. If a currency is trending down and looks to continue that way, we buy much fewer traveller's checks, plan on using the charge card, and don't purchase the checks we do buy until very shortly before the trip. It may sound like a lot of bother for nothing, but when the British currency was dropping, we saved 15 or 20 cents on the dollar on the last set of charges, and the bills in the last set were for over $300. I am not about to pass up a gain of $50 wherever I find it. One other thing: I implied but didn't actually state it above, that when we buy our traveller's checks in the U.S. prior to our trips, we buy them in the currency of the countries we will visit, NOT in dollars. This saves a great deal of hassle exchanging money while abroad, and you generally get a better exchange rate when buying the checks than you would converting in a restaurant or hotel. We try to estimate what we will spend and buy an amount of checks just slightly under that amount. Then, if while we are there, we find we underestimated, we can fall back on the charge card if need be. Only once have we had a traveller's check left over. Also, it helps endear you to the natives that you are carrying THEIR currency instead of those Yankee dollars that are turning the world economy upside down. They don't expect it, and generally they are pleased, since it saves them the hassle of converting, too. Everybody may know the exchange rate, but it doesn't make converting less of a pain. We have used both American Express and Thomas Cook traveller's checks; I would recommend American Express (even though I have had such trouble with their charge card department that I will never again do business with them except for traveller's checks). The main reason is that almost ANY establishment (at least in Europe) will accept Amex checks (traveller's checks in general are much more widely accepted in Europe than in the U.S.); Thomas Cook's checks are not accepted nearly as many places, and it means finding an open bank to get them changed into bills and coins, which is not always the easiest thing to do, and time-consuming. I can't speak to other traveller's checks. Next time we travel abroad we plan to try Citicorp or some other kind -- anybody have any reports on the success or problems of using these? Debbie McBurnett rruxe!debbiem