I just completed a wonderful 6 week holiday in Argentina. Being a recent retiree I am always looking for maximum value while enjoying great vacations. The currency situation in Argentina certainly attracted my interest as we planned our trip.

My internet research led me to find addresses for 4 different cuevas, currency exchange shops. None of them are the places that have touts outside yelling cambio. The latter you encounter every 5 metres along Florida. I never used one of those.

I started on January 3, the day I arrived, visiting a cueva on Arenales, between Talcahuano and Libertad in Recoleta. It is called Jewelry and Exchange, has jewelry display spaces in the window facing the street with the rest of the windows covered in a white opaque material. You buzz to get in and then walk to the back of a well furnished waiting area where there is a bank-like wicket where you exchange your cash.

I decided to start with US$500. I watched like a hawk as they counted out the Ar$100 bills. The counted them with the silver stripe down. I recounted them there with the stripe up. They all looked OK and the count was accurate.

For the next couple of days I kept wondering if some retailer or restauranteur was going to hand me one back and say it was fake. It never happened!

Throughout our 6 weeks I paid for our apartments in US$ cash because that's whats requested and how apartments are priced in BA. Everything else was paid for in cash in Pesos, all acquired at the blue rate at cuevas.

Over 6 weeks I used 4 different cuevas, the Arenales one was used the most. I also used one on Junin opposite the Recoleta Mall, one at Cervino and Scalabrini Ortiz and one in Mendoza. The most humourous experience was arriving at the Scalabrini Ortiz cueva to have the door opened for us by two policemen. Very polite.

As mentioned above, I received Ar$6.50 to the $ on my first day. At that time the official rate was about Ar$4.90 to the $ which means I might have got Ar$4.75-4.80 at a regular exchange counter or bank. The advantage exceeded 30% on the official exchange rate.

During my vacation the blue rate kept rising and my best return was $7.65 to the $. It later dropped back to Ar$7.35. At the peak my advantage exceeded 50%. Over the course of the holiday I estimated I averaged at least a 40% advantage.

Over the course of 6 weeks we exchanged about US$8,500, all of which we brought with us is good quality US$100 bills. That means we received about 650 AR$100 bills from cuevas. Not one proved to be a fake.

Everything in my background says don't use a black market because you will get scammed. But my background also says look at the evidence. I was a little nervous during and after my first cueva visit. But as the holiday progressed my comfort level with cuevas increased. I still watched them count bills like a hawk and doubled checked every bill they gave me. But I also realised that scamming customers wouldn't be a good business practise for these operations.

Every time I saw another tourist produce a credit card to pay for something I felt sorry for them. They were paying far more than they needed to pay.

We literally paid for everything except apartments in cash in blue market Pesos. I produced my credit card for check-in at hotels and for pick-up of a rental car. But when I received the final bills for those I just produced my Pesos and paid for them in cash.

Based on my estimate of a 40% advantage using the blue rate, I estimate that the $8,500 I converted to pesos secured us an extra $3,400 in value. We would have paid $3,400 more for the same holiday if we'd used the official exchange rate. That's not chump change.

I have shared my experience so other travellers can consider my evidence. I'm not suggesting using cuevas is risk-free. But I do suggest the risk is minimal. And I suggest anyone spending more than a few days in Argentina may want to consider using cuevas.

Toward the end of my holiday I began to realise that even if 10% or 20% of the bills I was given by cuevas were fake, I would still be ahead of the game compared to using the official rate. But not one bill that I received was fake. We had a great holiday. And it was fabulous value.