Originally Posted by
arlflyer
But you're saying that, at least at that time, there was actually such a hunger for USD, a la Argentina (though not as extreme), that they were providing motivation to get physical cash from America into the country as a hedge against their domestic currency issues - something that wouldn't happen with wire trading of forex by big firms. Hence the actual incentive.
Yes; I'm far from a financier as well, and I'm not sure my impression of what caused it directly is accurate at all... but it was certainly connected
timing-wise to the aftermath of the coup, and the spread varied over time but tended to be around 2-3 baht to the dollar which isn't huge but enough to be worth working around on larger withdrawals/exchanges.
But it's apparently not like that anymore.
It has been back to normal for years, although old habits die hard for frequent visitors, and I think it coming back to normal may roughly correspond with the ATM fee starting.
So ATMs are fine? Or I should find and check big domestic bank rates against the VISA network and Oanda rates?
It never hurts to check both, at least briefly at the start of a visit. In general, exchanging on the ground in Thailand is very easy and involves much less of a spread than many other places.
And thanks all for the info on the ATM DCC language. I'll try to stick to less-sketchy ATMs and keep an eye out for double and triple negatives and such!
When I've been offered DCC at an ATM, it's always been pretty clear
if you know what it is; I guess I've been lucky to not hit any of the double/triple negatives. I think I've seen the same wording as
ft101 at some point, although I've also seen the "local" vs. "account" currency wording.
For retail CC transactions and hotels, it's much harder as they generally will just do it unless you ask.
That said, DCC rates in Thailand aren't
terrible -- really, about the only terrible rates seem to be the FX booths at the airport and at hotel front desks.