Are there any canucks out there that can tell me the best way to get the least ripped off on the currency exchange.

I will be buying a house and truck when I arrive in Chaing Mai in Jan of 2005.

The total cost of the house and truck will be 2 million baht give or take a bit.

Using the atm in Thailand seems to be a bit expensive and I am having no luck finding out how much it will cost me to wire transfer 2 million baht from HSBC in Canada to Thailand either.

I am thinking that buying 60 thousand dollars worth of travellers checks might be the way to go as they seem to give a better exchange rate.

Any advice from some fellow canucks that have gone thru the same think would be greatly appreciated.

Check out "http://www.everbank.com/main.asp?affid=eb", I think anyone can apply.

Are there any canucks out there that can tell me the best way to get the least ripped off on the currency exchange.

I will be buying a house and truck when I arrive in Chaing Mai in Jan of 2005.

The total cost of the house and truck will be 2 million baht give or take a bit.

Using the atm in Thailand seems to be a bit expensive and I am having no luck finding out how much it will cost me to wire transfer 2 million baht from HSBC in Canada to Thailand either.

I am thinking that buying 60 thousand dollars worth of travellers checks might be the way to go as they seem to give a better exchange rate.

Any advice from some fellow canucks that have gone thru the same think would be greatly appreciated.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hey guy!!

I usually TT (telegraph transfer) my money to my bank (or your girlfriends or wifes) Siam Commervial Bank in the original currency CAD in your case, as the thai's seem to give a better exchange rate. If you do a large transfer you should get a proof of transfer form from the Thai bank (I forget the name of the form), its the only evidence that the Thai authorities recognise that you have transfered the money. You may need to prove it later down the road if you have any marital difficulties. I have never done it in the past but I will next time.

DO NOT let Thomas Cook handle any of it for you. They made a ton of money off me last time I swapped Canadian $ and Baht around and I won't use them again.

CIBC has always been good to me as its a flat rate of $35 no matter if I transfer $100 or $10000

cv

I am having no luck finding out how much it will cost me to wire transfer 2 million baht from HSBC in Canada to Thailand either.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

HSBC has a major operation here in Thailand, so there should be no correspondent bank fee for a wire to their branch here. You would therefore be looking at fees only for the originating bank and the receiving bank. I don't deal with HSBC, but I can't imagine that the total be be over $50.

For all wire's, your exchange rate will be the spot rate at the actual time of exchange. The bank rate on a wire at that particular time will always be a far better rate than the retail rate for either an ATM transaction or traveler's checks. On the other hand, rates can easily fluctuate more than 1% in a day, so what rate you actually end up with is mostly a matter of luck.

Do the bank transfer and, as a previous poster adviced, make sure you get a FETF from the bank in Thailand when you receive the money, you will need that if you later want to take the money out of Thailand.

Travellers checks may give you a better exchange rate than cash but you also have to pay a premium when you buy them so there is no profit there, they are just safer in the case of a loss.