Exhanging Mauritius Rupees to Euros in UK?

gorbbs

Hello,
I hope someone on here can help me. I'm going on holiday to Spain and need to get some Euros. I have 21,500 Maurtius rupees that I thought I could convert to Euros here in the UK. I was told that it would be better to exchange the ruppes for Euros in Spain rather than convert rupees > pounds > euros and lose out on upto 20%.

Any advice on here?

Why can't I just convert rupees to Euros in the UK? Is the loss in exchanges/buy rates significant?

Cheers

dzug1

You've been good advice - many places would have just done the double exchange without telling you about the double charges. 20% is maybe an exaggeration but you could easily lose 10% on changing them onto ££ and another 5% changing those ££ into euro. In Spain there would just be the one 5% - or with luck cheaper.

And you can't do it here because there's no demand for such a thing. OK insufficient demand.

catokelly

gorbbs wrote: »

Hello,
I hope someone on here can help me. I'm going on holiday to Spain and need to get some Euros. I have 21,500 Maurtius rupees that I thought I could convert to Euros here in the UK. I was told that it would be better to exchange the ruppes for Euros in Spain rather than convert rupees > pounds > euros and lose out on upto 20%.

Any advice on here?

Why can't I just convert rupees to Euros in the UK? Is the loss in exchanges/buy rates significant?

Cheers

The more exchange rates you go through, the more 'value' you lose.
So in the UK the Mauritius Rupee would first be converted to GBP (as GBP is the 'base currency') then tthe GBP will be converted to Euros. Whereas in the Eurozone you are going straight from the Mauritius Rupee to the Euro.

However it depends if you manage to find a bureau in spain that offers decent rates, there may not even be much difference depending on what their margins are.

agrinnall

Just had a look on xe.com, they will exchange at 1 EUR = 39.4514 MUR, so your 21,500 MUR would get you 536 EUR. Using their rates for MUR - GBP - EUR gets you 535 EUR so it seems that they are probably doing the double conversion behind the scenes. So converting directly in Spain would probably get you a better rate, but I'm not sure how easy it's going to be to find somewhere that will want to buy MUR or to find out if it's possible before you go.

Voyager2002

agrinnall wrote: »

Just had a look on xe.com, they will exchange at 1 EUR = 39.4514 MUR, so your 21,500 MUR would get you 536 EUR. Using their rates for MUR - GBP - EUR gets you 535 EUR so it seems that they are probably doing the double conversion behind the scenes. So converting directly in Spain would probably get you a better rate, but I'm not sure how easy it's going to be to find somewhere that will want to buy MUR or to find out if it's possible before you go.

Are those actual quotes (given only to people who have signed up to their service) or did you just use the converter on the front page? The front page shows mid-market rates, with zero margin or commission, and no business on the planet could change money at those rates. That is why there was no difference between the Rupee - Euro and Rupee - Pound - Euro conversion, because in each case they were showing the exact equivalents.

Incidentally, xe does not convert cash, only bank balances, so would not be much use to the OP.