From: henry@ADS.COM (Henry Mensch)
Subject: Re: Europe - Strategies for dealing with exchange rates, money etc.
Organization: Advanced Decision Systems; a div of Booz, Allen & Hamilton
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1992 23:18:30 GMT

sriram@cremona.Eng.Sun.COM (Sriram Ramachandran) wrote: 
->* Banks usually have better exchange rates.

this varies by the locale.  best to shop around for the best rate.
american express usually offers a fair rate (you won't feel ripped
off, but you can probably do a bit better).

->* Credit Cards: 
->  There seem to two schools of thought on using credit cards. One that says 
->  that credit card companies usually give you a more favourable exchange 
->  rate. The other claim is that places that accept credit cards charge 
->  higher prices in the first place (to offset the fee they pay to the credit 
->  card companies) and this offsets the exchange gain.
->  Any opinions ?

both are true.  people who are travelling on TIGHT budgets cling to
the second claim, and people who have money to spend cling to the
first.  how you feel depends on how much you want to spend, and how
you want to spend it.  getting the most for your money is often
important, especially now as the value of the us dollar approaches
nil.

->* Convert all coins into paper currency before leaving one country. 

... or spend them.  here's a thought: i've noticed that some
travellers, rather than learning the numbers in local language, thrust
a large bill at a merchant every time they must purchase something
which has a non-obvious price ... and they get change, including
coins.  if  you do this often, you'll have too many coins.

this sounds ridiculous to north americans, where coins usually have
small value, but you can find yourself with a pocket full of "one
pound sterling" coins, and each is worth about USD2 right now ...
having twenty of those in your pocket when you leave britain, and you
have $40 in souvenir coins.

->* Carrying currency in local currency (francs, marks etc) from the US 
->  to lock in current exchange rates. Ofcourse with the rates being the 
->  way they are, I'm not sure if this will help a whole lot unless ofcourse 
->  the dollar continues to spiral downwards. 

actually, the point is to minimise currency exchanges, since you lose
money every time you exchange.  corollary: keep a bank of your
original currency and buy local currency from that "bank" whenever
possible ... you may have small amounts of local currency as you leave
one country for another, but keep these amounts SMALL.

scenario: you're going to visit five european countries.  you have a
kitty of several thousand dollars.  when you land in paris, your first
hypothetical european city, DON'T change your entire kitty into french
francs ... change only what you need.

presumably, your kitty is mostly in travellers cheques ... usan ATM
networks are often available in large european cities; check with your
bank (your local branch may be useless; call the main bank number and
ask to speak to the ATM department and ask for an ATM directory for
their <PLUS|CIRRUS> network) ... but don't bet that you'll find an ATM
wherever you go: many european ATMs don't have the network symbols
which you're used to looking for on usan ATMs.

--
# henry mensch / booz, allen & hamilton, inc.  / <henry@ads.com>