Exchanging Saudi Riyals to Dollars
 

Because of a perfidious client, I left Saudi Arabia with a large sum of riyals. My bank is no help. Does anyone know where to exchange for dollars? Right now, I'm thinking I'll have to return to the kingdom to exchange them.

If it's a freely traded currency and you're allowed to leave the country with it, then the main branch of any big bank in your city should exchange them at its foreign currency desk. Usually the bank won't help you if you don't have an account with them, though.

I'd also imagine that the main branch in, say, Houston, would be more likely to take riyals than the main branch in, say, Reno.

If the amount is really large, then you owe it to yourself to do some research.

My gf frequently converts $10k worth of JPY into USD, which isn't large enough to deal with currency houses in NY, but sufficient to get a slightly better rate from Wells Fargo (though still 200+ basis points away from the WSJ rate).

The local WF branches hate it when we do this because their managers claim that the difference gets billed to them.

Recently, I've been migrating her over to buying dollar coins with her credit card. Buying those gets her very close to the spot rate plus JL miles. Do you happen to have any CCs in Saudi Arabia that don't charge premiums for foreign purchases?

Reminds me of the old joke about "getting your money the old fashioned way... marrying it!", though usually with reversed gender roles. ;)

That makes such an incredible amount of sense... I need to get GBPs moved over to the US and this would be perfect! Even after following the whole dollar coins for miles thing I never thought of using it to convert currencies. Wire transfer rates for some reason aren't nearly as good as credit card rates...

Thanks for the idea!

What a brilliant idea! Wish there was an option for me to buy Euros that way since I am exchanging dollars for Euros.

Wells Fargo, my bank, wants nothing to do with it.

American Express will do it but I have to travel from Richmond to Washington.

Bump.

Where are you located? If you're in a big city you should be able to find an exchange specialist. Ask around in neighborhoods with high numbers of Asian immigrants (especially India/Pakistan).