Current American Exchange Rate

[maiapapaya]

I have an American $ account and have been watching the exchange rate hoping to take advantage of the recent upswing with the dollar. The market report at noon described the Canadian dollar as surging - music to my ears! :rotfl: Any financial types on here willing to guess as to how long this rise might last?

How long does it usually take the banks to catch up with their exchange rates?

[trl1812]

I read today where an analyst said that the dollar would be at par with the US dollar by the end of the year. It's hard to decide what to do. Right now it is sitting just over 91 cents.

[maiapapaya]

I've heard that it would be close to par. You're right. It's hard to know what to do. :confused3 It's tempting to exchange now, but since we're not travelling until next spring we can wait. I'll just be kicking myself if the predictions are wrong and the dollar takes a dive again.

[dis_guy]

You never know what it could do. We have a couple thousand left to pay by November for our Christmas trip. I'll probably throw $500 at it now just in case it gets worse again. :)

[fundy_dreamer]

As with many things financial...dollar cost averaging is a very powerful tool. Pick an amount you can afford each month (say $100 CDN) and put it into a $US account. Then you'll be buying more $US when its cheap and less when it's expensive. I've started doing this and it certainly eases the long term concern about guessing what's going to happen.

Good luck.

[monkeyknuckler]

Here's my prediction. Today the CAN dollar is .92 . Since we will pay off our DVC in the next 2 weeks, the dollar will skyrocket exactly after our last payment. But on the flipside, if we don't pay it off right away, the dollar will tank.
Keep in mind that our dollar fluctuates in unison with the price of oil, and oil is predicted to rise in the next little while, as it did in the last 2 days.

[stefanospops]

Here's my prediction. Today the CAN dollar is .92 . Since we will pay off our DVC in the next 2 weeks, the dollar will skyrocket exactly after our last payment. But on the flipside, if we don't pay it off right away, the dollar will tank.
Keep in mind that our dollar fluctuates in unison with the price of oil, and oil is predicted to rise in the next little while, as it did in the last 2 days.

Can you let me know when you decide if you pay off or not so I can do the opposite?

[a*lil*bit*goofy]

I bought $200 us for $224CAD the other day, (Wed I think?) I was happy with that!!! My mum works at the bank so she calls me everytime there is a drop. She called today, and said the feeling is that it will go down even lower again, so we are going to look at it again on Monday

[maiapapaya]

Thanks for the input everyone! My gut is telling me to wait a few days and see if it creeps up a bit more. Even if it has peaked for the time being, it's still a pretty good rate.

[alamode]

I just sent in a $500 US cheque as a down payment for my resale. If approved, I'll owe another $9K us in about 6 weeks. Lets hope the $$ goes up, up and away.

[TreesyB]

I just sent in a $500 US cheque as a down payment for my resale. If approved, I'll owe another $9K us in about 6 weeks. Lets hope the $$ goes up, up and away.

When I bought a resale, the Cdn$ was at 1.07 to the USD (after topping at 1.10). That day I bought a US bank draft in my own name until I could set up a USD account. That's another way of making sure you can protect yourself from fluctuations when you don't have a bank account.

[Goofy's apprentice]

We do the dollar cost averaging. We just picked a dollar amount we were comfortable with and have a regular transfer to a US account each week. We watch the exchange rates and throw a little extra in when it hits a good point. If it hits par we'll dump some more. Living near the border we use US$ fairly frequently.

Now if we could just get a Disney US credit card !!!

[iluvwesties]

We do the dollar cost averaging. We just picked a dollar amount we were comfortable with and have a regular transfer to a US account each week. We watch the exchange rates and throw a little extra in when it hits a good point. If it hits par we'll dump some more. Living near the border we use US$ fairly frequently.

Now if we could just get a Disney US credit card !!! :thumbsup2

I'm still hoping for this ;)

Did you know that Sears Canada's credit card is operated by CHASE bank in US? The same company that does the Disney Visa card :rolleyes:

So If Sears can give us a card, why can't Disney?

[daver]

:thumbsup2

I'm still hoping for this ;)

Did you know that Sears Canada's credit card is operated by CHASE bank in US? The same company that does the Disney Visa card :rolleyes:

So If Sears can give us a card, why can't Disney?

I think the big reason is the perceived number of cardholders vs Sears cardholders. I am willing to bet that 1 in 3 households have a Sears card, so 5+ million cardholders vs maybe 1 million (generous) Disney Cardholders. Not enough money in it I am sure. If there was we would have it already.
Maybe someone should start an email campaign to Chase to get them interested? :idea:

[Shir Kahn]

I'm all for any campaign that gets us the Disney Visa! :woohoo:

[Debbie]

We do the dollar cost averaging. We just picked a dollar amount we were comfortable with and have a regular transfer to a US account each week. We watch the exchange rates and throw a little extra in when it hits a good point. If it hits par we'll dump some more. Living near the border we use US$ fairly frequently.

Now if we could just get a Disney US credit card !!!

Except for living near the border....we do everything that you mentioned. I discovered yesterday that I got a better rate through ING than BMO, so that's how I did my transfer. Good thing, too, since I booked my flights on my US Mastercard last night. :banana:

[Goofy's apprentice]

Thanks for the ING tip. We'll have to check it out.

We continuously ask about availability to Canadians of the Disney VISA. The last number of times we asked the answer was that they weren't sure about our banking system?!?! After the near collapse of the US system and the fact that the Canadian system is respected worldwide, i can't imagine this makes any sense.

[grace&philipsmom]

I am in on pestering chase to give us canadians the disney chase visa! I had been waiting for the $ to hit 0.90 to pay on our trip, I paid half of it yesterday. I heard on BNN one guy is saying par and later another analyst saying a 0.95 top out.

[CrystalS]

Hey everyone, quick question:

We have a cruise (3night) and WDW (4night) trip to pay for. We have paid the 200 deposit for both time 2 (for ours and my mom/brothers reservatons).

When we did it the dollar was at .86 I believe, and we charged it to our CDN credit card. When we got the CC statement it was calculated at about 1.20cad = 1us
So not as great of a rate as was posted online (I had expected that though).

My question is, what is the best method to pay for our trip? We are using Dreams Unlimited as our travel agent, so I think we have to use a credit card with them, never asked about US money order or anything like that, would that give me a better exchange rate do you think?

We don't have a US credit card, and I think it would take to long to get one.... we have to have the total amount for our trip paid by June 26th.

Thanks for any advice.

[chasbos]

I have an RBC e savings account and an RBC US account - I can transfer as many times as I want into my US account for free but can only withdraw $$ once for free.

I can go on line any time and initiate a transfer - it will then give me an exchange rate and then I can decide if I want to buy the US$ at that time.

I did break down and moved $1300 CAD into my US account at $1.11. Not bad, but not great either. It is a whole lot better then when we went in Feb and I paid $1.30 on my credit card!

I think a little bit at a time is the way to go if you have a US account.

[squirrel]

I have the same as you the savings account with RBC and a high interest US account.

I haven't figured out where on the website to go to do the transfering of the savings account into the US one.

[daver]

Hey everyone, quick question:

We have a cruise (3night) and WDW (4night) trip to pay for. We have paid the 200 deposit for both time 2 (for ours and my mom/brothers reservatons).

When we did it the dollar was at .86 I believe, and we charged it to our CDN credit card. When we got the CC statement it was calculated at about 1.20cad = 1us
So not as great of a rate as was posted online (I had expected that though).

My question is, what is the best method to pay for our trip? We are using Dreams Unlimited as our travel agent, so I think we have to use a credit card with them, never asked about US money order or anything like that, would that give me a better exchange rate do you think?

We don't have a US credit card, and I think it would take to long to get one.... we have to have the total amount for our trip paid by June 26th.

Thanks for any advice.

We use Mastercard as well. There is a premium that they CC companies charge for conversion, but a money order will be a charge as well. Just figure out which works best. At least when we pay by CC we get the Airmiles to boot. I just watch the rates and make a payment when the dollar is high.

[chasbos]

I have the same as you the savings account with RBC and a high interest US account.

I haven't figured out where on the website to go to do the transfering of the savings account into the US one.

If you go into your e saving account online then when you go and check your account activity there is a list on the right hand side and you go into Pay Bills & Transfer Funds.

Once in there it asks for an amount and then there is a From drop down and a To drop down where you can pick your accounts.

I wish I had this set up when the $ was par and better, I would have made way more money than having it invested elsewhere!

[mousy_in_canada]

Hey everyone, quick question:

We have a cruise (3night) and WDW (4night) trip to pay for. We have paid the 200 deposit for both time 2 (for ours and my mom/brothers reservatons).

When we did it the dollar was at .86 I believe, and we charged it to our CDN credit card. When we got the CC statement it was calculated at about 1.20cad = 1us
So not as great of a rate as was posted online (I had expected that though).

My question is, what is the best method to pay for our trip? We are using Dreams Unlimited as our travel agent, so I think we have to use a credit card with them, never asked about US money order or anything like that, would that give me a better exchange rate do you think?

We don't have a US credit card, and I think it would take to long to get one.... we have to have the total amount for our trip paid by June 26th.

Thanks for any advice.


Can you play a cruise down slowly like you can with Disney? for example when you have an extra 100 or 200 can you apply that to your balance owing like I do when I call CRO @ Disney?

[spatulaqueen27]

I am trying to decide whether to pay off my August 10th trip now or wait till closer to the 45 day deadline. I am assuming the dollar will go up a little bit by then. ATM we owe about 1650.00 and it comes to about 1800.00. So not too bad.

[squirrel]

Thanks Chasbos!

I will go check it out and see about transfering some money now that our dollar is doing better. Hopefully, I can remember my pin #.

[5boyz]

So how come the pp got charged so much more in exchange rate, than was posted? I charged both legs of my flight (at different times) on credit card and they were the same as the exchange rate. I am paying my trip off June 9th and want to make sure I am paying the exchange rate. Is there other ways of paying other than the US account that was being discussed earlier? :confused3 Thanks!!!

[Wazzo]

Keep going dollar!!! :woohoo:

[squirrel]

Different credit cards charge different amounts for exchanging the US amount into canadian funds.

[dis_guy]

Just put $500 on our December trip! Can we get PAR?? :banana::banana::banana:

[5boyz]

What is going on with the dollar? It is up and down....oh my, I have to pay my vacation on June 9th and am getting nervous, I may just pay tomorrow...:confused3

[maiapapaya]

It seems to be heading back up ... what a roller coaster ride!
Good luck 5boyz!

[5boyz]

So what does everyone think...I am due to pay my vacation on June 9th. I am not sure what the $$$ is doing so am thinking of calling and paying today!!! Anyone heard what the predictions are with the dollar in the next week? Man it was up at .92, now in the last 3 days going up and down....I dont know anything about how this works so thought I would ask here.

thx

[stefanospops]

Most analysts are predicting we will be par with the US dollar again in 2010. So longer term the prospects are good. So if you have a DVC membership consider slapping more down on that sometime next year. However, in the short term there is no telling what will happen. I woudl suggest pay half today and half on the 9th to hedge your bets.