Tips to avoid currency exchange fees

ChisJo

Cause afterall, a dream that you wish, will come t
Joined
Jan 29, 2001
Curious what people do to avoid all these exorbitant currency exchange fees? Now with many of our no fee exchange credit cards being eliminated, what other options do we have? I have a bunch of gift cards for Disney, but for other travels, what do you do?
 
I use my Rogers MasterCard as much as possible when in the US or when purchasing from the US while in Canada. It works well for me because I can apply my 4% back to my kids cell phone bill. (My cell and my husbands are both covered by our employers.) Not sure what I would do if we couldn't utilize the rewards as Rogers cell customers.
 


I use Knightsbridge for transfers of large sums of money. I used this when buying into DVC.

Home Trust Visa still has no forex. I've applied but they seem incredibly slow to approve. I got an email 2 weeks after applying online, telling me they have received my application and it will be another 4 weeks before they let me know.
 
We use a BMO US credit card so there are no exchange fees. We also carry a certain amount of cash on our trips.
 
I use Knightsbridge for transfers of large sums of money. I used this when buying into DVC.

Home Trust Visa still has no forex. I've applied but they seem incredibly slow to approve. I got an email 2 weeks after applying online, telling me they have received my application and it will be another 4 weeks before they let me know.


We have a US bank account and US credit card that we left open when we moved to Canada.

We use Knightsbridge occasionally to move a chunk of money from our accounts here into the US bank account (also used them for our most recent DVC purchase to transfer to the closing agent). My husband was wary at first but Knightsbridge has totally won his loyalty.
 


I have a CIBC USD credit card and checking acct. it doesn’t avoid the forex fee for my buying USD to deposit into checking acct, but at least I can try to buy the days the CAD goes up.
Today I checked and is awful $1.30 ugh.

Considered getting Rogers credit card, but paying for our resort, buying air, I prefer to get my Alaska Airline points!

I will be getting some Disney gift cards too.
 
$1.30? The exchange rate listed on Yahoo is only 1.25 and the Mastercard rate WITH the 2.5% is 1.284

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RBC also has USD accounts available... that's how we deal with the cash tips portion, the CC exchange we try not to think about too much because it earns us lots of flight points!
 
$1.30? The exchange rate listed on Yahoo is only 1.25 and the Mastercard rate WITH the 2.5% is 1.284

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I know, on Cibc “travel tools” it was listed as 1.28 too. But at instant teller or inside bank it was 1.30! With forex 2.5%. I asked why, and teller said if I order it online thru their foreign exchange that’s the rate, but if I get it at the branch it’s the 1.30 rate. Makes me mad!!! So it’s the cheaper rate only if you order online. I don’t know why.
 

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