Here's the exchange rate plot. The first point at time -5 was our advance payment for our hotel in Wellington, and was made at time -63 (August 29; yeh, I know, should have gone earlier for a better exhange rate; for that matter, we should have gone twice in 2002 when the rate was around NZ$2.25 to US$1). Also, took a "beating" on the last charge which was not run through the bank until day 31 (December 1).
Some things are obvious. Use ATM to get money (caveat: If the dispensing bank charges for ATM use the advantage may go away depending on how much you withdraw at a time. We used WestPac Bank, which has an agreement with Bank of America and does not charge for ATM use - of course, the Visa ATM BofA uses does charge a 1 or 2% foreign transaction fee). Visa and MasterCard charge a 3% foreign transaction fee, by American Express 2%, which accounts for the Amex points being consistently above the Visa and MC points. Amex is pretty widely accepted in NZ, but not everywhere. Of course, any credit card rebates need to be taken into account. Debit cards are widely used in NZ, but I seldom use them here (and not at all in NZ). Hope this is interesting, if not useful.
02-19-2007
