Quote: (08-09-2012 01:37 PM)TheShiningOne Wrote:
sorry, I am a bit illiterate financially, but is it the same thing with an account in Europe (and in Euros).
Also, I live in argentina and need to buy a plane ticket urgently. Do you know of a local travel agency that offers good prices for iunternational flights, so what i might earn in conversion doesn t get washed up because of the difference in prices with online comparators?
1. If you have bills, you can trade euros in a cueva, or likely through arbolitos (guys hanging around av. Florida saying "cambio?"). I have no experience with this, but Argentines do it all the time. They will likely take you into an off-street business to do the actual change. If you're worried about counterfeits, a handheld blacklight should detect the fluorescent ink on bills. Alternatively, ask to sell your euros in a chinese supermarket. Currently you should get around 7 pesos to the euro using this method. I do not know of a similar service to xoom for European account holders, although I know of a Briton who used "Ria Financial Services" in London for a money transfer to a BA local partner, Argenprep, for a favorable exchange rate. If you're living here long-term, you should look into setting up a brokerage account for blue chip swap transfers, as you'll get a significantly better rate that way (closer to 6.7 ARS:USD). I think the minimum for this to make it worth the Argentine broker's time is ~$10k USD per transfer, they won't do it for less as their margins will be too low.
2. If you find a price on kayak.com or some other website with a major airline listed in USD, you can either buy that flight directly using an Argentine credit card denominated in pesos (which I'm guess you don't have) to get the official 4.6 exchange rate, or you can buy the same ticket from an Argentine travel agent in cash (pesos), with something near that official rate. WTS travel gives a 4.7 conversion, slightly worse than the official rate, but if you're getting 7 pesos to the euro (or 6.2 to the dollar), that's still a ~25% discount on flights. It's only about 2% off of what you'd be getting with 4.6, so you're still getting a massive discount. However, if you walk down Florida, there are a hundred travel agents that will do this for you.
You can buy tickets in other people's names as well, so if some enterprising and trustworthy forum member feels like starting a small business here for some pocket money, until this loophole is closed, there you go. Large volume on this would probably get you audited by multiple tax authorities and expose you to having airlines cancel tickets, etc. - it's strictly a small-time deal, I'd say.