Currency Exchange Rate - Maximizing the Potentials of Your Travel Dollar

If you are trying to find the best real time rate of foreign-currency exchange rate at home or abroad, you probably won’t find many bargains abroad this summer because of the weak U.S. dollar, but don’t make your trip even costlier by paying more than necessary to convert your greenbacks into yen, euro, or whatever. You have several options of finding the best current US currency exchange rate, and each has pros and cons.

Bring some cash from home

For starters, you should exchange a small amount of cash before leaving the U.S. This should cover incidentals such as taxis, trains, and meals while you’re en route. You can use an ATM card at bank machines to obtain local currency upon reaching your destination. However, take note of the currency exchange they are giving at a foreign rate. They might be charging too much for less. Use a credit card for large purchases and hotel bills. Here are the some of the things that you need to know when dealing with your travel dollar and at an exchange rate of your specified currency.

Converting cash at home lets you lock in the currency exchange rate and reduces hassles when you arrive. But you’ll pay a built-in commission, so the currency rate exchange is likely to be worse than the one you’ll get when you use a credit card or ATM card overseas.

Converting your greenback

You can convert cash at a bank, foreign-currency exchange office, or online at a specified international currency exchange rate. Travelex, a company that also operates exchange bureaus in airports and other locations, will exchange $200 to $1,500 into 55 denominations, and provides next-day delivery for $13. Travelex will also exchange exotic currencies with advance notice, but the markup will cost you. Recently, when $125 equaled 85.16 euros at the international currency rate exchange, the same amount bought only 78.52 euros at Travelex.

Exchanging it overseas

You can get local currency exchange rate at exchange bureaus in airports and other tourist venues, though the currency rate of exchange might not be the most favorable. You can also draw cash from an ATM at a specified currency exchange rate, although your bank card might not be compatible with some machines in the countries where you are traveling. You should try to look for ATMs that are part of bigger networks such as the Cirrus for MasterCard or PLUS for Visa, and know your PIN as a number, since the keypads on some foreign ATMs don’t have alphabet characters.

Most ATMs, credit cards, and debit cards use an interbank exchange currency rate that is better than the one used by exchange services. The bad news is that both ATMs and your card issuer can hit you with network and issuing-bank fees totaling 1 to 3 percent, on top of their standard transaction fees, this is on top of the commissions they get from the currency exchange rate. Nevertheless, on the low end of that range, this is likely to be your best option. CurrencySource.com has a currency exchange rate converter and other tools for calculating fees.

About Credit Cards

Using credit cards like MasterCard, Visa, and American Express to obtain cash at a specified currency rate of exchange are widely accepted throughout the world for purchases and cash advances. The amount you will pay in conversion fees depends on the issuing bank. An example would be that most banks levy fees for foreign transactions on credit cards, though Capital One does not. Also be aware that many restaurants abroad and even some hotels do not cater to credit cards. And the currency exchange rate you’re given by a hotel or store on your credit card could change before the charge is posted to your account.

It is a very good idea to notify the institution that issued your card beforehand that you’ll be abroad so that it won’t view your transactions as suspicious and freeze your account.

Prepaid Debit Cards

You could also purchase a prepaid debit card. If you don’t have a credit card or probably want to set a limit on how much you’ll spend, you can buy a prepaid debit card or “travel money” card. These often carry a long list of fees for everything from withdrawals to reloading funds like most other types of prepaid cards. For example, the Western Union Prepaid MasterCard issued by BankFirst includes a nonrefundable activation fee of and a reload fee. Nevertheless, it will allow you to transact abroad at a local currency exchange rate.

Traveler’s Checks

You can also use traveler’s checks which you can get from large banks, though many people now leave home without them. Even the general manager of Travelers Cheques for American Express, Wesley Wright, concedes that the checks can be difficult to use in some restaurants and shops. The only advantage of this is that they’re safer to carry than cash, since they can be replaced within 24 hours at more than 200,000 locations worldwide. And you can lock in currency exchange rate if you buy them in a foreign currency.

More Info on : Purchase Foreign Currency | Send International Bank Draft | Send Money International | Wire Transfer Money | Yahoo Currency Convertor