Travel money: How to get low-denomination notes?

pthompson

Hi,

When traveling to Africa & South America, I take plenty of US Dollars -- but find that high-value notes are difficult to spend. And changing them fo low-value notes at the destination is costly.

I prefer to use the online Travel Money Comparison site ( https://travelmoney.moneysavingexpert.com/?_ga=2.12933687.1230949595.1561461532-2087344584.1557773487 ) to get the best Forex deals, but find they don't allow me to specify the desired denomination of notes.

Anyone have a suggestion please?

Thanks.

heatherw_01

If you pick up in store you can often specify easier what denomination you prefer.

eDicky

Do you always spend in USD instead of the local currency, or only in certain countries?

Do you have any fee-free 'travel' cards such as Halifax Clarity, Starling Bank etc?

From which UK airport(s) do you usually depart?

Duckyduck

Not sure if all places online allow you to order single dollars, but I usually order $99 from Tesco online to benefit from the slightly better rate while it also forces them to provide low denomination notes, I’ve never had higher than a $20 when doing this.

pthompson

eDicky wrote: »

Do you always spend in USD instead of the local currency, or only in certain countries?

Do you have any fee-free 'travel' cards such as Halifax Clarity, Starling Bank etc?

From which UK airport(s) do you usually depart?

It obviously depends on the country, but I find that I need plenty of USD (in addition to the local currencies) for my destinations (Sierra Leone & Argentina).

I've not considered those cards and I'm afraid cards are less widely accepted in general where I travel.

Typically I fly from LHR.

Thanks.

cubegame

pthompson wrote: »

It obviously depends on the country, but I find that I need plenty of USD (in addition to the local currencies) for my destinations (Sierra Leone & Argentina).

I've not considered those cards and I'm afraid cards are less widely accepted in general where I travel.

Typically I fly from LHR.

Thanks.

We found that in Argentina (last year) that there is little interest in low value dollar notes.


The perceived wisdom is that the best route to getting most for your money was to take new crisp $100 bills and exchange for Peso at Argentine banks.

zagfles

pthompson wrote: »

It obviously depends on the country, but I find that I need plenty of USD (in addition to the local currencies) for my destinations (Sierra Leone & Argentina).

I've not considered those cards and I'm afraid cards are less widely accepted in general where I travel.

Typically I fly from LHR.

Thanks.

Do they not have ATMs?

fifeken

ATM withdrawals of odd figures eg 19,000 or 1,900 instead of 20,000 or 2,000.

Use larger notes for small purchases in convenience stores like 7-11, Carrefour etc or in a supermarket to buy water, snacks etc.

Watch out for ATM charges and maximise your withdrawals as much as possible while still using the above technique.

benjus

zagfles wrote: »

Do they not have ATMs?

Last time I was in Argentina ATMs charged at least 4%, making it a fairly expensive way to access money even with a fee-free card. Cards are reasonably well accepted in Argentina (in urban and well-off areas, anyway), but you can often get a discount of more than 4% for paying cash.

Like cubegame, I've never had problems changing $100 bills to Pesos in Argentina.

zagfles

benjus wrote: »

Last time I was in Argentina ATMs charged at least 4%, making it a fairly expensive way to access money even with a fee-free card. Cards are reasonably well accepted in Argentina (in urban and well-off areas, anyway), but you can often get a discount of more than 4% for paying cash.

Like cubegame, I've never had problems changing $100 bills to Pesos in Argentina.

But how much do you pay changing GBP to USD and then USD to Pesos? You'd probably pay almost 4% in exchange rate markup just changing GBP to USD!

benjus

zagfles wrote: »

But how much do you pay changing GBP to USD and then USD to Pesos? You'd probably pay almost 4% in exchange rate markup just changing GBP to USD!

Personally I've generally been able to exchange GBP to USD with no markup simply by looking for a colleague with some USD to get rid of via the company intranet classifieds board (I work in a large office where people travel a lot).

Even if that's not an option, because USD is such a common currency the top bureaux de change on TravelMoneyMax are offering less than 1% markup. I think the typical markup in Argentina for buying dollars is 2 - 2.5%, although you can do better.

But it's a fair point - if you can't "cheat" then there's not much difference between 3.5% and 4%, so you might as well use ATMs with a fee-free card and not worry about carrying lots of USD cash around.

To be honest the last time I actually took cash dollars to Argentina to exchange there was when they still had currency controls and it made a massive difference to have cash dollars. Since then I've just used ATMs and moaned a bit about the 4%.