Just a heads up. Something changed on Friday afternoon. All of my Visa charges from Friday afternoon and Saturday are showing “pending “ at the official rate (roughly 187). None have cleared yet but this is a change from earlier in the month when charges were “pending” and cleared at the better rate.

I will be using MasterCard today but of course I won’t know for a few days if they are still rebating back the difference.

I will update this after the visa charges actually clear and of course I will be reaching out to my bank if the rate seems wrong.

Some WU agents will pay you with what they have in the cash drawer.

In the perfect world, you will get 1000 notes.

But, normally you will get a mixture. Remember that almost all of the WU agents also work with Pago Facil and they receive piles of different denomination notes in payments of bills for gas, phone, electricity etc.

It all depends on luck.

Please come back with an update.

[fwiw, the VISA Exchange Rate Calculator ([url]https://usa.visa.com/support/consumer/travel-support/exchange-rate-calculator.html) is currently showing 1 USD=333.23 ARS]

I will be curious to see as well. MC rates appear to be at the official government rate.
https://www.mastercard.co.uk/en-gb/p...-currency.html

I am happy to report that my Visa charges from last weekend have now posted and that they are indeed at the new preferred rate.

Thank You! So it looks like VISA is the card to use, and MC and AMEX cards to avoid in Argentina.

I have seen no positive reports on Amex. MC was rebating the difference a few days later and I expect that they will for my charges over the weekend in a few days. Certainly Visa was easiest.

as others have noted, the best exchange rate remains cash either via a local money changer or via western Union.

Just one final post as I have now left Argentina. MasterCard did indeed continue to rebate the difference in exchange rates. So the net cost was almost the same as Visa. I did make a second cash withdrawal via ATM (only 10,000 pesos) and the net coast (after my bank refunded the ATM fee) was on par with what Visa credit charges were. A month in BA for two people netted out to just about USD100 per day for two people. Eating out almost every night. Wine or beer every night.

Good thing you didn't have wine and beer every night. That would have been a budget killer ;)

That's why we eat at home ....

Most nights we have both, and some vermouth at the weekends as well.

My apologies... I didnt know you had such a strong dislike of Alcohol, Perfumes, Chocolates and assorted snacks.

As others here are quick to point out, there are some seriously interesting arbitrage opportunities at the EZE Duty Free. This is related to the ForEx gap between the official and the Blue Market rate.

Only perfume. It gives me a headache and makes me want to vomit. In airports that allow it, I will take the long way around. In airports that don't, I hold my breath as I run through.

FYI, I’ve made some test visa charges today and they are pending at ARS 398/1 GBP. This is not as good as the blue rate of ARS 355/1 USD I got at my hotel in Mendoza. However, If this holds, it will make more sense to charge my hotel to visa as I will save the VAT and the overall cost will be less. Just not sure the charges will clear before I check out and an official rate conversion would be very unfavorable.

You have to use it inside Argentina now. All online websites all blocked.

Where are you finding this? At payment page time? While I've not tried to complete a transaction, both the LATAM and Buquebus websites AR pages are not blocked from the USA.