Recommendation if you want one
 

We stayed a fantastic little place in Tilcara. We paid in cash in Pesos in April 2022, but they very well would/could be amenable to taking payment on Visa or MC.

Casatilcara Cabanas. Check it out.

What is MER?

He meant MEP , I think - one of the FX rates that the financial bods use.

Just received approx 40% refund from Amex back this morning from this transaction (about 1 week later) so it looks like they are on board with the tourist rate. This was on a $CAD Business Platinum.

Isn't there a 2.5% FX fee?

No idea right now but would most likely be there somewhere. Maybe it will show on the statement this month?
I was more interested to see if Amex provided the MEP rate and not too bothered with the typical fx fee.

https://www.reuters.com/markets/rate...ce-2023-04-27/

Dolar Blue was as high as 467/USD yesterday 😮

That is after government intervention. It was in the 490s the day prior.

Doesn't the government need USD to intervene? The very hard currency that it desperately needs? Bloomberg also reported that the Argentine government reached a deal with China to use CNY for trade with China. It still won't solve their long-term economic problem though.

I imagine that Sergio Massa is using the Chines Yuan as a negotiation tool with the IMF.

Technically the IMF said no to using USD to intervene in the market. We all know this didnt happen last week.

His intervention was useful to bring the Blue down but the MEP and the CCL stayed close to their original values

Yes and no - its kind of complicated.... the Government is not only the Argentine Treasury & the BCRA (Argentine Central Bank), but you have to remember that they also have the firepower of the large State Owned and Provincial Banks, who are all very large market players in the local Capital Market and all hold positions not only in ForEx but also in foreign currency denominated bonds/securities. So when the Government decides to intervene, it can do so with the mentioned firepower and also it can place derivative trades and other financial engineering tools/alchemy.... so its a mixed bag of tricks - and yes, the CNY swaps are also one of those "tools". Bottom line is that this all means additional USD denominated liabilities going forward... so in the end, its the usual Peronist tactic of building a perfect booby-trapped bomb that will explode just after the next government takes office.

And then they have the ANSES, which is the government owned Pension Fund System, which they consistently raid and good around with their investment portfolio - they dump USD and other hard currency securities on the open market to temporarily contain the different synthetic exchange rates (this is an indirect way of influencing the blue dollar rate). All this is one of the many reasons why all retirees in Argentina are well below the poverty line - folks that worked their ar$es off during 40 years and now receive maybe 6-10% of the real net present value of their contributions as a "social security" benefit. The actual payouts are an actuarial nightmare......

Peronismo 101, LPMQLP.

(sigh)

People posting their experiences paying with credit cards in Argentina in this thread should really say each time in which country their credit card account is based.

Many people have Australian, or UK, or Canadian, or Irish, or mainland European country based credit card accounts, and it would be really helpful to know if I pay with a non USA based credit card, if I'm going to get the same favourable rates as a US based credit card holder.

Exactly. I am going to Argentina in August and hope to use a Japanese credit card to pay for things as well while we are there.

Travelled from UK.

Used:

• nationwide (visa - immediate exchange at lower rate, excellent!)
• Starling (MasterCard - immediate exchange at official/higher rate, with a refund following a few days later to make it the lower rate)

Both worked flawlessly. Many retailers asked for debit card rather than credit card, or if credit card was only option they would add a small percentage.

​​​​​Didn't change any currency in Buenos Aires. But did so in smaller towns like Tilcara and Pumamarca, where it's easy and less like a street dealer!

Called today Swisscard (issuing Amex and Visa / Master cards for Miles & More Senators for free) and after a loooooong wait regarding exchange rates from ARS was told that best to use Visa alternatively Master Card, but not really Amex and that it is Visa Intl and Master Card Intl. who will establish the rates (whatever this means).

Looks like that it will be cuevas and arbolitos like in the past :eek:. What a stress traveling to Argentina. The reason why I went only once before and prefer Chile by far. Sad, because it could be wonderful and service is consistently great (the best hospitality industry staff in Chile are from Argentina)