Travelex Currency Services

Lying sacks of you-​know-​what. Their website says nothing about fees for getting under $ 500 or whatever the absurdly high limit is. I tried to call multiple times throughout the day and no one ever answered. So I show up in person and I’m told if I want $ 100 CAD for $ 80 USD, I would have to pay $ 10 USD as a fee. Um, that is a ridiculously high fee. My debit card has a 3% foreign exchange fee vs. Travelex’s fee, which worked out to about 12.5% for what I wanted. Honestly, you should check with your bank if you need to exchange money. The rates will probably be far better than Travelex. It’s true that Travelex does have the foreign currency on-​hand if you’re desperate, but if you have the time, ask your bank. I also discovered that my Southwest credit card has no foreign exchange rate. In the end, it was easier to charge everything on my credit card and then just take out a little cash on my bank card.

My wife and I just got back from our honeymoon in Europe. We went to this Travelex before we left and got Pounds, Euros, and Swiss Francs. We figured they would have reasonable exchange rates because they were located inside of a US Bank — a good, reliable, trustworthy bank. Well, looking at the receipt from when we purchased the cash and comparing to exchange rates we saw in Europe — we paid waaaaayyyyy too much at this Travelex branch. We would have been much, much better off bringing US dollars to Europe and exchanging over there. And there was no significant change in the exchange rates between when we purchased at Travelex and when we were in Europe — we purchased at Travelex the morning that we left. And in fact, looking at the charts, the cost of the European currency on the exchanges went up while we were there, but it was STILL much cheaper to buy in Europe.
Here are examples of what we paid at Travelex vs. what we saw in Europe:
Euro — we paid at Travelex: $ 1.40, we saw in Europe for: $ 1.31 — $ 1.35
Pound — we paid at Travelex: $ 1.78, we saw in England for: $ 1.65-$ 1.69
Swiss Franc — we paid at Travelex: $ 1.16, we saw in Switzerland for: $ 1.05-$ 1.09
The long and short of it is, we were taken advantage of buy Travelex. We learned our lesson and will NEVER go back there and do not recommend using them.

This Travelex is located within the US Bank. I was scratching my head, trying to figure what to give a close friend for her wedding, and decided to gift her some Euros for her honeymoon. Really, I could’ve planned it better to avoid paying exorbitant fees, but if you’re in a rush to buy Euros, this is the place. They have NEW, crisp bills («we just printed them this morning, harhar») and can do denominations as small as 5e. Anyone who’s been to the continent knows how pesky the 50s and 100s from the ATM can be…