exchanging money

Re: exchanging money

Hello onmyway!,

There are heaps of places all over Egypt that will exchange money, sometimes even in your own Hotel!

I have exhcanged money at the Papyrus Museum in Cairo, in a section of the Bazaar in Aswan & many other sites in Egypt.

Try not to let this worry you too much. There are always excahnges situated at the top end Hotels, when all else fails!!

Hope this helps..........Debbie

Re: exchanging money

Debbie, when you travelled, did you take Aussie, US, or Egyptian? Or a combination?

Re: exchanging money

Hello IKaussie,

When I first began travelling in Egypt I took travellers cheques in US$, did this on my first 2 trips I think. I also took aussie$ & around 300AU in Egyptian pounds....from memory!

Then I began just taking US$$ & exchanged them in Egypt quite easily. I have also exchanged Dubai & Bahrain cash over there, as I had travelled to those countries first!

However on my last trip I just took all the Egyptian Pounds I had left over from my last trip & used ATM's to withdraw any other cash I needed!

It really is very easy to exchange money in Egypt. I had no problems excahnging Travellers Cheques either, so long as you ensure you take the paperwork you get with them & your passport. However I only exchanged cheques in the larger banks in Cairo.

Hope all this is useful!!...........Debbie

Re: exchanging money

Hi,

Just to add to Debbie's reply.
I suggest getting some Egyptian Pounds in your home country as depending on your arrival times you may not have enough time to get/exchange money for Day 1 of your trip before the day has started.

Both times I've visited Egypt I've taken about 1,000LE (AU$250) over and then withdrawn money out of ATM's the rest of the trip with no issues at all. However we did have a traveller on our tour that had trouble due to their bank (can't quite remember which one, could have been a local/state bank, even though they were told it could be used O/S). I've never had any issues with Visa cards though..

Don't forget about money for your tipping kitty on Day 1!

Hope this helps =)

Re: exchanging money

Thank you both so much for that info - really useful to get the lowdown from someone who's "been there, done that"! Hopefully I'll be able to do the same when I return.

Re: exchanging money

I didn't take ANY Egyptian pounds with me, due to last minute rush, but I regretted it. I found Cairo quite a culture shock and it was very daunting to HAVE to go out in search of money on my first day, as I was travelling alone, arrived just before dark and would probably have preferred not to venture out very far.

ATMS are everywhere though. Best really to have 2 different cards and have enough cash in reserve in case you need to visit a couple of machines - but this is advice I would give for anywhere in the more developed areas of Europe too, as there is nothing worse than being stranded without cash on holiday!

Re: exchanging money

Lol, This is definitely only for my situation but I'm taking a combination of American Dollars, British Pounds, Euros and Egyptian Pounds.

American Dollars for the visa when I arrive and the local payment.

British pounds for my stopovers in London on the way there and back. The way back I'm there for 24 hours.

Euros because one of the local guides I hired wants payment in Euros...or equivalent. The only problem is the Euro has skyrocketed in recent months against the Canadian Dollar and by buying Euros now, the price of my tour is now fixed at what I bought the Euros for If it goes down though, I'm going to cry.

Egyptian Pounds to tide me over until I can find an ATM at my leisure.

Re: exchanging money

I took about 1000LE and extra US$ for the local kitty.

I arranged a Travelex AUS$ cash card in Brisbane before I left and used it twice at ATMs with no trouble incl LE 1000 to pay for the tour extras including Abu Simbel flights. I also exchanged some leftover US$ at a biggish bank open after dark in Aswan when another tour person was exchanging Euros.

Another person did have trouble finding somewhere to change travellers cheques in Aswan, but we were pushed for time so couldn't stop and queue at too many open places...

And one of our enterprising tour group members, who couldn't get his card to work, bought something at a store and arranged to put DOUBLE the price through on his VISA card, and then they gave him half the amount back in LE so he got some local cash!!!

When in doubt, be creative.

Megan

Re: exchanging money

I'm one of those who travel with multiple sources of money. I did find that cairo ATMs were frequently down and when one was down, they all seemed to be down.

Re: exchanging money

I found there was a problem with ATM's when I was in Egypt and Jordan October 2007. There were 4 of us from Canada and we had ATM cards from 4 different banks and none of them worked until we found an HSBC ATM. We had to use our Visa card and make cash advances at the bank machines. For you information there is a HSCB bank machine at the Nile Hilton that worked for us.
Catherine