Ok so I’m back to scheming about getting the best exchange rates for my Australian money in Thailand.
Obviously, cash is always best. I have no Australian cash with me, so this is about the other options.
I usually do cash advances on my credit card and then pay it back to the card pronto pronto to avoid interest charges. On 30/12 I did this, and got THB20,000 for AUD866.80, an exhange rate of 23.073 B/$.
http://www.exchange-rates.org/history/THB/AUD/T shows that the actual rate for that day was 23.914 B/$. At that rate, with 20,000 baht, they make 728 baht, or 3%.
To compare that with regular purchases on my credit card, I recently flew to Bangkok for THB7,180, which converted to AUD301.03, an exchange rate of 23.851 B/$.
http://www.exchange-rates.org/history/THB/AUD/T shows that the actual rate for 05/Jan was 25.012 B/$.
At that rate, with 7,180 baht, they make 349 baht, or 4%.
An additional forex service I use, Ozforex, today quotes 22.492 B/$.
http://www.exchange-rates.org/history/THB/AUD/T shows today as 23.061 B/$.
At that rate, with 25,000 baht, they make 632 baht, or 2%.
If I could transfer AUD with my stupid bank to my Thai bank, apparently I’d get 23.214. If I was going to be here for a long time, I’d probably look into that.