mia

Here are the USD/NZD rates that American Express published (for the International Dollar Card) around then:

12 Jul 1.377
13 Jul 1.366
14 Jul 1.365
15 Jul 1.379
16 Jul 1.389
17 Jul 1.389
18 Jul 1.389
19 Jul 1.402
20 Jul 1.419

gooselee

I just calculated and my charge converted at 1.38167.

As I didn't even contact the merchant to make the charge until July 17, it seems that maybe they used the rate from the Friday before?

mia

I believe currency markets are closed on weekends, and their rate is based on the previous day's trading. This means Saturday, Sunday and Monday posting would all be based on Friday's market. I can look again next week to see if the pattern is the same.

gooselee

That makes complete sense. No need to keep checking/testing rates unless uncovering the pattern will somehow help others here. And in no way do I think that Amex is somehow "cheating" me out of a relevant rate or anything like that.

I know next to nothing about currency markets, I was just curious whether the shift to their new currency conversion service was making a difference in what rates we get on our transactions vs. what we got in the past. This is a single data point that IMO opens the door to the idea that indeed different rates are being used, but many, many more data points would be required to make any assessment as to whether or not that guess is actually true, and moreover whether it's favorable, unfavorable, or net-indifferent for customers.

Thanks for the insight thus far!

mia

I am happy to lookup rates when it helps make sense of what we are seeing. I find discussions based on data more rewarding than conjecture. I don't know of any way to access the site without an IDC/ICC account, and to my knowledge there is nothing similar on the USA site.