Hot answers tagged exchange
31
I use five strategies to pay for things when I travel:
The best rates are often the rates you get with your American credit card or debit card. Try to charge as much as you can. The fees are very low and the exchange rates are fair. However, many American banks charge several dollars for every foreign currency transaction, so if you plan to spend a lot of ...
19
Unless it is a significant amount, changing coins isn't worth it. The amounts are small and most banks and foreign exchanges won't accept coins generally.
My solution is to collect the left over foreign coins until I fly on an airline that participates in the Change for Good program and then donate them. British Airways and Virgin also have their own ...
17
It is certainly not true that "most European countries take gold". You cannot pay for goods in a shop with gold, nor can you walk into a bank with gold and walk out with currency. In many countries ownership and import of gold as coins or bullion is restricted.
There are places where you can sell gold jewellery, but you will get very poor prices.
16
This varies very much depending on your country of origin and your destination.
Best exchange rate mean lowest spread, but keep in mind, that some banks apart of the spread, also charge extra commissions.
Keeping that in mind, there are some general tendencies. Exchange rates, from best, to worst:
electronic transactions (i.e. transactions made directly ...
14
My normal advice is in this answer, which is to get a card without foreign exchange fees and take the cash out while you're over there. You'll generally get the best rate by far with this, and you don't have the safety issues of carrying round a week's worth of money in cash.
If you are going to be somewhere without access to ATMs, so you need to take cash ...
13
Thomas Exchange will change almost any currency into Sterling - including the Mongolian, Kazakhestan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, Armenian and Georgian currencies, and many other obscure currencies and even pre-Euro currencies such as French Francs, Italian Lira, etc.
We do not charge any additonal fees and our rates are always better than the Post Office, M ...
12
Very, very easy. Any bank in NZ will happily exchange those for you, or indeed as you step off the plane, there are several currency exchange places at all the international airports.
Be aware that the airports can sometimes offer worse rates than banks in town - but it depends how much you're exchanging of course, as to whether bothering with the effort ...
12
I am not sure if you can open a bank account in France if you are not a resident. When I stayed in France for almost two years, it took me quite some time to open a bank account, even while working there. Finally I had the best service at the post office.
What might be a solution is to use the gift card of the same post office. These gift cards are ...
11
If you really want to change them, your best bets is to change the currency with people who go to the currency's country, either tourists or residents.
Usually, I just keep the coins around and give them to friends when they go to somewhere I happen to have some coins from.
Other than that? Just keep them as souvenirs, give them away, go visit the same ...
9
I have just been to two Exchange offices in Sofia, Bulgaria. I had banknotes from Serbia, Macedonia and Albania with me. They both offered to buy all three of them.
This doesn't mean you find someone who does this in Finland but it proves that both Macedonian denar and Albanian lek are indeed convertible currencies.
This is a sign from one of the ...
9
Although gold is at a high value now, it's not easy to convert into cash. A lot of places are doing "cash for gold" in shops for people to sell their old jewlery etc. However they pay maybe one tenth the price per troy ounce. I know this is the case in numerous European countries. So you'll have to buy it at 100%, and sell it at 10%, meaning a 90% drop in ...
9
I personally recommend just getting money out at your destination with an ATM. Quite often you can get debit cards or travel cards that let you pre-load from your home country, and then withdraw over there, fee free. However, I suspect they'll make their money other ways (ie worse rates).
My tactic - on arrival, get cash out at the airport ATM or bus / ...
9
Although the official currency of Peru is sol, US dollars are widely accepted in many places.
I found out three ways to exchange dollars into soles:
In banks - the banks have the worst exchange rates and there were always lines. Besides, not all commercial bank exchange money. I don't recommend this.
From street moneychangers - there are people in most ...
9
China has lifted most of the restrictions on trade in Chinese currency, so it has been possible to (legally) obtain renminbi outside China for a few years. When entering and leaving China, you are allowed to bring 20,000 CNY in local currency (appr. 3,200 USD) and 5,000 USD or equivalent in foreign currency (source: Chinese Customs).
Assuming that you are ...
8
It depends not on which country is your home but which country offers the best exchange rates.
Since you have not listed either where you live or where you're planning to go we can't give you more specific advice.
But here's some general advice.
Usually the richer a country is, the more expensive money changing is.
Developing countries often want major ...
8
For large sums, rates for telegraphic transfer are usually way better than for cash, so you're almost certainly best off depositing the cash in a NZ bank and wiring it over to Canada. Of course, if you don't have a Canadian bank account yet, this gets a bit more complicated; you'd need to set up online banking and ensure that you can do a TT to Canada once ...
7
There is no preferred currency per se for exchanging into INR in India, although US dollar, British pound, and the Euro are the most common exchange currencies. These are the three main currencies that most foreign exchange agencies support: for buying INR, it is usually not a problem as among these three currencies they will be happy to accept them. ...
7
Ok, Peter cleared up the more general doubt about exchangeability of the lek anywhere outside Albania. As to my original / more specific question:
Is there any place in Helsinki where I can change those back into
euros?
Seems like no, not in Helsinki.
A "Money Change" booth I stumbled upon in Kamppi Centre: no (raising a suspicious eyebrow at the ...
7
Every international airport I've visited has something like this:
(This one was in Schiphol yesterday, but I've seen them everywhere.)
It doesn't matter what country the coins are from or what country you're in. They'll sort them out and spend them to make the world better. Just gather up what you have and drop them off next time you see one.
7
Did you try your bank? HSBC, for example, will convert any currency to your local currency if you are an account holder. The rates are quite good and they don't charge a fee. The downside is that they have minimum amounts for each currency type (usually around $50 here in the US) and they don't usually convert coins.
Edit:
Also, if one branch of a bank ...
6
The cheapest way to exchange money is to use a dedicate currency trading house. Your bank / credit card company will almost certainly charge you 2.5% on top of the exchange rate. I use XE Trade and pay half that.
I've never had a single problem with XE regardless of the method I used to move money — Draft, Wire, ACH, bill payment through online ...
6
Currently the NIO is about US$0.0445. As for how it changes, I can't find that, and would be surprised if that is what happens - perhaps on the black-market as in somewhere like Uzbekistan where the rate is different from the official rate, but others may have some more information.
...
6
Use a website where travellers meet, perhaps Couchsurfing or Lonely Planet Thorn Tree. Advertise that you have some unusual currency you wish to change at the current official rate with no overhead or fee, just direct traveler to traveler to somebody about to go to the destinations you just returned from. Arrange a time and place to meet (not in the forum ...
6
If you happen to visit a school show, where students show their hobbies, you will find that world coins are quite popular as a collection topic. You could perhaps give it a some collector.
Donate it to church auction. Some coins which form a set of a country, may be interesting prize.
Last choice is sell it on eBay.
6
Enter
1,680 CAD in GBP
in Google. In newer version of Firefox you don't even have to navigate to Google first but you can directly enter it in the address bar.
Then you get the actual exchange rate. So actually you get 1,0736.1917 Pound Sterling
If you're talking about 1680 CAD then you have to adapt the query properly.
6
I am not aware of any country where gold is an acceptable currency. Banks typically don't buy gold from strangers. They require that you have a checking account with them.
Jewellery stores, pawn shops and thelike will probably take your gold for cash, but it's a gamble: They'll guess the value and make an offer based on how much they value your coin. Maybe ...
6
In general in Poland specialized currency exchange offices (kantor) are much better than banks. I would guess that in bigger cities you will get a better deal, you should shop around and compare rates in different offices (so probably Wroclaw or Krakow).
Google shows the average exchange rate at a given moment, so you are pretty much guaranteed that you ...
6
For that amount of money the best solution is almost always going to be to do a wire transfer from your UK bank (or possibly your Spanish bank) to your Philippines bank. There will frequently be a charge on each end of the transfer, but it's normally negated by the fact that you'll get a good exchange rate for the transfer - normally far better than you'll ...
6
Money exchange in Turkey has traditionally been so prevalent due to the instability of the lira that the cost of exchanging US dollars and Euros is almost negligible. However, most other currencies are bought and sold at a considerable margin, so even if someone will exchange lira and won, it will be to your disadvantage.
Your best course of action is to ...
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