Currency conversion for Canadians

This years conversion equates to take a year to stay home.

toban wrote:
Don't use a Canadian credit card at all in the U.S. Use a U.S credit card like Visa or MasterCard issued from a Canadian bank and have a U.S. account set up in your Canadian band. The card will automatically pay you statement every month if you wish from your US account so there's no extra 2-2.5% surcharge.

If you are going to the same place each year, then maybe it pays to open a local US account in an American bank.

The currency news has not been encouraging in the last few days. Some economists are saying the exchange could go to .70 by spring 2016 which is 42.8%. There was one projection saying in the next 5 years the exchange could hit a low of .55 or 81%!
Who knows.

Toban

Toban, we use a US$ Canadian CC as well, the only fly in the ointment is the conversion to get the US$ at the best rate.

I'm too lazy to check to see the comparison between the VISA international conversion rate that the Amazon VISA card uses and the bank rate (before the 2.5% add). I wonder if VISA hides some "bump" in that rate. I'll have to do some more digging!

Don't use a Canadian credit card at all in the U.S. Use a U.S credit card like Visa or MasterCard issued from a Canadian bank and have a U.S. account set up in your Canadian band. The card will automatically pay you statement every month if you wish from your US account so there's no extra 2-2.5% surcharge.

If you are going to the same place each year, then maybe it pays to open a local US account in an American bank.

The currency news has not been encouraging in the last few days. Some economists are saying the exchange could go to .70 by spring 2016 which is 42.8%. There was one projection saying in the next 5 years the exchange could hit a low of .55 or 81%!
Who knows.

Toban

Not to sure how it calculates but we use Accu-rate.
Works out to 1.3%


http://www.accu-rate.ca/rates.php?currency=CAD&to=USD

That's good to know. I also use my Amazon.ca VISA card almost exclusively in the U.S. because it is about the only card that does not add the 2.5% to 3.0% on to foreign exchange. Even if you have a premium card like a TD Infinite card for example, they still charge that extra percentage. It usually does not show as a separate fee, it is buried in their exchange rate, but it is there.