Currency exchange

I’m pretty irritated with Bank of America right now. I called the branch by my house earlier this morning to ask if they can exchange currency for me and was told that yes, they can. Maybe I didn’t ask the question appropriately, because I was under the assumption that they could exchange money when I came in. Needless to say, I waited about 20 minutes in the teller line only to be told that it’s a mail order currency exchange service that is provided and I could likely get the money by next Wednesday. I leave for Greece next Thursday, and a maybe for the day before isn’t going to cut it for me. Their stellar branch customer service representatives then moved me to the sign-in wait list to go ahead with the order. I was about fed up at this point and the lady who would be helping me was walking around doing everything but checking in on me, the customer. I’m not a demanding customer mind you, but I expect a modicum of service in any establishment. I walked out.

By this point I was resigned to the original option I had come across which is the American Express travel store in the city on Pratt Street. The place has one good thing going for it, namely a recommendation from a friend saying that it is the only location she goes to for currency exchange. I’m sure it’s a great place for just that, but it also has two big (in my opinion) detractors working against it. Location is one. Parking on Pratt Street is non-existent and any other nearby parking costs way too much to make the trip worth while. Second, the hours are Monday through Friday, 9a-5p. Not very conducive to a working gent like myself. Thankfully Ricky had found a third option by this point, Travelex.

Travelex turned out to be a little kiosk located in the BWI airport. I was wary about going to the airport to exchange money, but living so close, Ricky and I figured at worst we’d be going just a few miles out of our way. The website for the BWI location has two phone numbers listed, both of which are out of service and/or disconnected. Not a great sign, but still we wanted to give it a go.

As it turns out, I’m fairly pleased about my experience with Travelex. For $7.95 I converted $252.85 into €150.00. That works out to a 3% fee to do the exchange. The fee is waved if your transaction is over $500.00. As it turns out the exchange rate is pretty abysmal and I probably will shop around better next time, but for the convenience and lack of attitude it helped save my sanity for the night.