coming in with cash thats over the limit

[Old55]

Mike and the others are correct. The risk of having large amounts of cash is foolhardy to the extreme and completely unnecessary. 

 

Edited September 6, 2022 by Old55

[Gator]

5 hours ago, Heeb said:

Make sure you bring new bills in, the slightest flaw or mark and they get rejected by the money changers.

Or they will devaluate it and give you a lower exchange rate. Same with 20$ bills and one in Cebu tried it with 50’s. I took my business elsewhere. 

Edited September 6, 2022 by Gator

[RBM]

11 hours ago, OnMyWay said:

Actually, this is probably a moot scenario, because where would you find a couple of million peso outside the Philippines?

Our family is coming from NZ next week.  You can only find a few pesos in other countries, unless it was smuggled out of PH illegally. 

Trust there not using Kiwi dollars......

[OnMyWay]

49 minutes ago, RBM said:

Trust there not using Kiwi dollars......

They are going to exchange NZD for USD before they leave, and then use the USD to get PHP after they arrive.  There are not many places that will take NZD for pesos.  We have one changer locally who does NZD and yesterday the rate was 33.1 pesos per NZD.

I did a little math and it seems that plan will work out.  In order to get better than that 33.1, they will need to get at least .58 USD for their NZD in AKL.  XE is about .60 right now, so .58 seems possible.

Do you know any good websites to look up what the NZD/USD street rate is in AKL?

[Gas]

1 hour ago, OnMyWay said:

They are going to exchange NZD for USD before they leave, and then use the USD to get PHP after they arrive.  There are not many places that will take NZD for pesos.  We have one changer locally who does NZD and yesterday the rate was 33.1 pesos per NZD.

I did a little math and it seems that plan will work out.  In order to get better than that 33.1, they will need to get at least .58 USD for their NZD in AKL.  XE is about .60 right now, so .58 seems possible.

Do you know any good websites to look up what the NZD/USD street rate is in AKL?

That will work out very expensive.
Why not use their  New Zealand ATM cards and withdraw the money from the machine?  Much cheaper than converting. 

Edited September 7, 2022 by Gas

[OnMyWay]

48 minutes ago, Gas said:

That will work out very expensive.
Why not use their  New Zealand ATM cards and withdraw the money from the machine?  Much cheaper than converting. 

I will ask them.  There will also be fees for that, most likely.  She actually works for a bank.

[sanagimo]

16 hours ago, OnMyWay said:

Actually, this is probably a moot scenario, because where would you find a couple of million peso outside the Philippines?

Our family is coming from NZ next week.  You can only find a few pesos in other countries, unless it was smuggled out of PH illegally. 

Equivalent to my friend and your right its not in peso

[BrettGC]

2 hours ago, Gas said:

That will work out very expensive.
Why not use their  New Zealand ATM cards and withdraw the money from the machine?  Much cheaper than converting. 

 

1 hour ago, OnMyWay said:

I will ask them.  There will also be fees for that, most likely.  She actually works for a bank.

Don't forget that there's a LOT of Aussie and Kiwi banks that charge for the initial conversion at the time of withdrawal and then a further monthly fee for converting currency at the end of the month.  Last time I did it it was 50AUD at the end of the month in addition to the fee at the time of withdrawal.  How do I know about the Kiwis?  It happened to a friend in the US.  Mine was with Bank of Queensland, I'll ask her which bank in NZ she is with and get back to you.  Needless to say, it only happened to me once, after that I found alternative means.  I queried BOQ and they stated it was routine with a lot of banks in Australia.

Long story short Don, it would probably be worth your relatives making the enquiry with their bank before they leave to see if @Gas's idea is a viable option.  

Edit:  Admittedly both cases were about 4-5 years ago so things may have changed.  

Edited September 7, 2022 by BrettGC

[hk blues]

44 minutes ago, sanagimo said:

Equivalent to my friend and your right its not in peso

In which case you can bring in as much as you wish as long as you declare anything above $10k - it seems a painless process with the declaration form being available at the airport.

As to the wisdom of bringing in cash - I'll leave that to you to decide.

[Gas]

3 hours ago, OnMyWay said:

I will ask them.  There will also be fees for that, most likely.  She actually works for a bank.

Using a ATM is always a better option than using a money changer because you get better rates. Yes some banks charge a fee, but it still works out cheaper. 

1 hour ago, BrettGC said:

 

Don't forget that there's a LOT of Aussie and Kiwi banks that charge for the initial conversion at the time of withdrawal and then a further monthly fee for converting currency at the end of the month.  Last time I did it it was 50AUD at the end of the month in addition to the fee at the time of withdrawal.  How do I know about the Kiwis?  It happened to a friend in the US.  Mine was with Bank of Queensland, I'll ask her which bank in NZ she is with and get back to you.  Needless to say, it only happened to me once, after that I found alternative means.  I queried BOQ and they stated it was routine with a lot of banks in Australia.

Long story short Don, it would probably be worth your relatives making the enquiry with their bank before they leave to see if @Gas's idea is a viable option.  

Edit:  Admittedly both cases were about 4-5 years ago so things may have changed.  

Most of the kiwi banks waived ATM fees  both in NZ and overseas a few years ago.