Euro @ $1.4529 What was the high?

I guess you guys are right, but the bank of course always buys low and sells high. Crooks!

Oh, that makes me sad Tony. I remember seeing it briefly hit $1.60. When you factor in that we would pay more (that is the rate banks pay, when you just exchange a little bit it costs a few cents more) it was looking pretty daunting. We are leaving in 10 days and have already decided "no regrets". (In other words, if it is $1.10 next spring, we will not look back and regret...but we may decide to go again!!)

I think $1.58 is a bout right but seems it might have been 1.60 for a couple of days that is the offical rate of course and the banks charge more. !!I was in london with the pound at 2 for 1 I ended up walking more drinking and eating little; after 10 days I was noticeably healthier !!

The highest it reached was briefly at $1.61. A good estimate is that it will probably hover between 1.25 and 1.50 for the next couple of months. But, the dollar could still see quite a bit of improvement versus the pound, now that Britain has officially declared itself in recession and will probably allow for some currency inflation.

I bought my euros at WF bank last week. I got it at a rate of 154.98 with no fees. One of my friends got it for me because the bank does not charge her any fees (she claims they own her :). I leave in 15 days and did not want to wait any longer.

I look at the exchange rate as just another expense in an already expensive trip. If you constantly wait for a better deal on rates etc. a Europe trip, like everything else, will never happen.

Jon, very true that a trip to Europe is expensive. When you are on a tight budget and have everything planned, where to go, what you want to see and do, and then a .15 to .18 cent hit on the dollar really affects your plans. That was as much as $600 taken out of what I had saved for the trip. That could have meant cutting 3 to 4 days off my plans. Just did not want to lose those days. I decided to save another year and go next year. Might have been the wrong decision based on what I see now, but then again it might work out even better. I have worked two jobs for a good while to save for this 18 day trip and did not want to cut it short. At 64, this might be my last trip to return to areas I truly love and enjoy. Drop Euro Drop is all I can say.

Kent beat me to it. Nadine, you DID pay a fee -- close to 6%, or 3 to 4% than you would have paid at an ATM in Europe. And WFargo is notorious for the fees that they charge.

But to respond to the general tone of this posting, Tony just illustrated why none of us are successful currency traders.

The only bank that does not charge a conversion fee of which I am aware is USAA. The bank does not advertise this, but by comparing my bank statements (showing ATM withdrawals in dollars) with the historical corresponding exchange rate on those days I used the ATM (via www.XE.com), I could see that there was no fee charged.

I'm betting that within the next two months, oil prices will drop and the value of the dollar will rise.

By mid-November, look for a reversal.

Tony, I have taken 8 trips to Europe in this decade and none of them was over 2 weeks long -- all were absolutely fabulous. I personally don't think cutting a few days from your trip should be a deal breaker. I think you are over-thinking this, you will always find a way to postpone it if things aren't 100% perfect. At some point you just have to go. I am near your age and know the value of going and enjoying while you are in good shape.

I really have problems converting from that direction. I do it the other way. As in this week I get .66 € for $1.00. A while back it was .61 €. When the euro first started, I received 1.12 € for my $1.00. So it has almost halved. It has been nice seeing it go up. A year ago I got .70 €. This is just easier for me to convert like this. Not so many numbers and my division skills are sad.

I paid a deposit for a trip next year and was charged $1.64. This was due to wonderful Wells Fargo fees on top of the exchange rate. If I knew 3 weeks ago what I know now...I certainly would have waited a bit. I could have saved $150 at this point with the Euro at $1.45 today.
Oh well...live and learn. We are going no matter what.
I have to pay in Euro...or I would be happy to pay today for the entire trip and know that I locked it in at a rate that is closer to a year ago when the Euro was hovering around $1.40.

The good thing is...I only put down a deposit to hold the hotels, etc, so the much larger balance, hopefully, will be paid with Euro a bit more in my favor.

Nadine, just because banks buy low and sell high, that doesn't make them "crooks". They are profit-making businesses, not charities. They make their money in lots of ways, and taking a cut of the exchange rate is just one of the ways. Might as well accept it.

It's a mistake to think of the interbank rate as an official rate, it isn't. All that figure you see in the papers is is a snapshot of the currency market at a particular time, if you look in different publications the rates will vary slightly depending on exactly when and how they viewed the market.

Think of it as the wholesale rate, it's only available if you are bulk buying millions at a time. When you pull €200 out of an ATM you are a retail customer and, unfortunately, you pay the retail rate.

Peter, that is simply not true. When you withdrawn from an ATM you get the interbank rate plus whatever is added by the network for processing. Historically that has been 1% but recently have seen reports that it could be in the range of .8%. If you want to call that the retail rate, that is fine. After that your card issuer may decide to add some fees but that is their decision. But it is by far, the cheapest way to obtain foreign currency especially if your card issuers only adds min fees. WaMu, for example, only adds 1%.

Frank, I don't know what I've said that you think isn't true. (In fact I don't even see where you disagree with me.)

As you say, at an ATM you get the interbank rate plus a mark-up. If you buy a product in a shop you get the wholesale price plus a mark-up. I agree that ATMs are the best deal because the mark-up is so low, intact some banks apparently absorb the network charge and only charge you the interbank rate.

The point of my post was that the interbank rate is not official. It is not set by any authority or govt. and it is not a legally enforceable conversion rate. It is simply a snapshot average of what banks are paying to buy and sell currency amongst themselves. Banks and bureaus de change are not cheating anyone one by not giving the 'official' rate because there is no official rate. There is the rate they buy money at and the rate they sell it to you at, whatever the difference is is their profit.

The good news: the euro has come down roughly 10% in the past few months.

The bad news: airfare prices have gone UP between 35-50%.

An example: if you were to spend 200 euro per day for 14 days in Europe, your new savings with the lower exchange rate would be about $400 total. However, with the increased prices in airfare, you are pretty much guaranteed to spend (at least) $400 MORE now to purchase your ticket with today's prices.

The result: if one must choose, I'd rather take a higher exchange rate and (much) lower airfares.

Good points made, Angela. And "they" are not saying airfares will decrease. They're saying that even if the price of oil continues to fall, the airlines are not likely to reduce airfares now that the increases of the last year or two are in place and have been accepted by consumers.

All I know is that last month, I only got 630 € for my $1000 and this month I will get 670 €. I don't mind getting another 40 €, as I want to go out and buy some more shorts!

Jo, from your past posts, I believe you get paid in U.S. $$$. Based on that, your cost of living has been about 30% higher for the last several months. I'm sure you are hoping big time for a better rate for the dollar.

Today rate is $1.4196, so it's down another .0333 since last week. Sure would be nice to see it around $1.25 by the end of the year.

I'd like to see it at $1.25 by the end of the week!! That is when we leave. A girl can dream!!

I think it will stabilize around $1.4 to the euro.

$1.40, all right, can we take that to the bank?!

I think it was $1.62 at its highest. Of course, when I was there. I still think I got good value for my money. It cost $3000 for four for a 10 day trip and we did everything we intended to do.