From: mitch@lsil.com (Mitch Sako)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: Re: Have some cash
Date: 19 Aug 92 17:29:05 GMT
Reply-To: mitch@lsil.com
Organization: LSI Logic Corporation

In article oo6kebo@fido.asd.sgi.com, jice@echo.asd.sgi.com (John Eisenman) writes:
>When I visited Japan about a year and a half ago, I found that
>using US $ traveler's checks where a bad deal.  I exchanged dollars
>to yen a number of different ways that all gave different results.
>I changed some dollars (cash) to yen in San Francisco and got a pretty
>decent rate -- just a couple of yen per dollar below the exchange rate
>listed in the news paper.  I had to shop around for this rate, most of 
>the local places where giving a much worse deal.  The down side was that
>this place only took cash or cashiers checks.

I'm interested to hear where you found the best rate here in the Bay Area.
I'm going in November and I need to buy some yen before going over.

>I traded some more dollars for yen at the San Fran Airport.  Here I got
>a deal that was about 5 yen/dollar worse than my best deal, but still 
>better than the rates that the local place at the mall was charging.
>I also obtained some US (VISA) traveler's checks.  There were free at
>my bank.
>In Japan I exchanged my US traveler's checks for yen.  I did this at
>a bank.  The exchange rate for traveler's checks was much lower
>(at least 8 yen/dollar) than the exchange rate for cash, and even
>that was not very good.

I find this VERY inconsistent with my personal experiences in the past.
Where were you when you did this?  I have always seen a better rate for
using $-T/C instead of $-cash.

>Eventually, I had to take a cash advance on my Visa card.  I did this
>twice.  Both times, I got a very good exchange rate (almost exactly
>the rate listed in the newspaper).  All I had to pay was a small
>cash advance charge and one month of finance charge to my credit
>card company.  This was about 2%.  Overall, I would say that this was
>the best deal.  It turned out to be especially good for me because 
>the dollar/yen ratio was going up during my time in Japan (but that is
>not something to count on).

VISA will charge the spot exchange rate for the day but the cash advance
fee is usually more expensive than you state in my experience.

>The best deal overall was paying with a credit card whenever possible
>(I can't speak Japanese well enough to bargain, so I don't know if 
>cash would have been better from that point of view).  When I paid by
>credit card (visa or mastercard), I got a very good exchange rate
>(very close to the paper) and no finance or cash advance charge.
>Again, this turned out to be even better for me because the dollar/yen
>rate was on the way up, so that by the time I got the bill, things
>where cheaper than I thought.  Is there a down side to using a credit
>card?  Next time I go, I am going to bring very little cash and a
>bunch of credit cards.

Credit cards are not accepted everywhere like they are here and you are
going to need a certain amount of cash.  If you are comfortable with 
cash advances then go for it.


---

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Mitch Sako	LSI Logic Corp.		Phone	408-433-4187
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