$0 Commission on All Foreign Currency Purchases @ Australia Post

Comments (Closed)

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  alwayseric on 19/04/2011 - 06:56 ¶

  i remember AusPost always claims that they dont charge commission.

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  +9 votes

  ca6leguy on 19/04/2011 - 07:08 ¶

  All commission and fees are already included in the lower exchange rate the offer

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    isdnman on 19/04/2011 - 08:12 ¶

    Agreed

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  Tal_Shiar on 19/04/2011 - 07:12 ¶

  are you playing a belated april fools prank on us, or is there an an actual deal here to view?

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  maplesyrup on 19/04/2011 - 07:21 ¶

  *Exchange rates may include a service charge.

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  davodavo on 19/04/2011 - 07:51 ¶

  Australia Post have always just taken 2-4 cents off buying American $ and charge 'no commission'.

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    isdnman on 19/04/2011 - 08:12 ¶

    Agreed x 2

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  ceejay on 19/04/2011 - 08:20 ¶

  HSBC and Citibank exchange rates are far better.

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  31mop on 19/04/2011 - 08:26 ¶

  Go and buy $10k worth of US dollars, wait for aussie dollar to drop to 70c or so and then sell. $4300 profit!

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    4rcane on 19/04/2011 - 08:35 ¶

    I wouldn't buy USD. US Federal Reserve are devaluing their dollars Zimbabwe style at moment

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    Cluster on 19/04/2011 - 10:17 ¶

    Not as silly as it sounds. I did something similar back in 2008 with USD$ and Yen. The risk of course is the currency may move in the wrong direction, and while you're holding paper it's not sitting in the bank earning 6.51% (UBank).

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    scrone on 19/04/2011 - 12:38 ¶

    Currency trading is a fool's game.

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      31mop on 19/04/2011 - 21:04 ¶

      Not really. I've made some good dollars from currency trading before.

      Last time aussie dollar crashed I had $5k of US and i think I made about $2.7k profit in the space of 3 months.

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  battler on 19/04/2011 - 08:44 ¶

  plenty of discussion of (best) FX rates here:
  http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/34589
  http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/17542

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  neil on 19/04/2011 - 08:48 ¶

  Westpac charges $0 commission on it's Traveler's cheques plus you can use your CC to purchase which maybe useful for points/miles whatever. I last tried this a couple of years ago, so I'm assuming this still holds true.

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  chuneeperformance on 19/04/2011 - 08:57 ¶

  They issues 1 AUD = 1.0152 USD… that's a whole 4c off the market rate!!! many places only take off 2cents

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    supercheap1 on 19/04/2011 - 09:21 ¶

    I exchanged AUD $1,000 for USD $1,035 at a money changer in Melbourne CBD yesterday!

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  +4 votes

  Hellfire on 19/04/2011 - 09:04 ¶

  Not particularly good rates. I'll stick to using my 28 Degrees mastercard.

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    theblake on 19/04/2011 - 10:11 ¶

    How do you know your 28 Degrees mastercard is better? they claim no fees on transactions but as Mastercard charges fees on all rate conversions, how do you know that 28D does not load the fees into the rate to make it look like there are no fees. Unless you have done simultaneous transactions with two cards many times over, and can be sure both were processed at the wholesale level at the same moment, I am not sure how you could know.

    but by all means, I am interested if you do.

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      greenpossum on 19/04/2011 - 12:41 ¶

      I haven't done as rigourous a test as you suggest, but I have looked at the exchange rates on my statement and they are about 2-3% above the interbank rate of that day, which is pretty standard for CCs and better than cash or TCs (how quaint). Where you save is the lack of a transaction fee, which can add up if you do lots of withdrawals. E.g. for a $500 withdrawal, $4.50 is nearly 1%. And you can't always take larger amounts, some ATMs have limits on withdrawals.

      You can also use 28degrees to pay Amazon UK and not get hit by a transaction fee on a purchase worth £25.

      CC companies make their money from people who fail to pay on time.

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      auri on 19/04/2011 - 19:48 ¶

      Many people have experienced the great exchange rates given by 28 degrees.

      Their rates are pretty close to the interbank rates.

      The only problem is that you cannot lock in the rates if you are not overseas.

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  +4 votes

  mech4bg on 19/04/2011 - 09:16 ¶

  "no commission" is a lie, they just give you crap exchange rates and then tell you they're not charging you fees. It's a joke.

  28 Degrees Mastercard ftw.

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  stavroz on 19/04/2011 - 10:10 ¶

  The first bank i checked their exchange rate against - ANZ - had a much better price!

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  hunter_syd on 19/04/2011 - 10:24 ¶

  Poor rates! No thanks!

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  +2 votes

  SSJX on 19/04/2011 - 10:25 ¶

  just use http://bestexchangerates.net/rates to see if the rate is competitive at all

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    Gaz1 on 19/04/2011 - 15:13 ¶

    Great website!

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  conio on 19/04/2011 - 12:31 ¶

  better off going direct to travelex than via aust post
  http://www.travelex.com.au/

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  sweefu on 19/04/2011 - 14:06 ¶

  Current XE spot rate = 1.04668
  While you will probably never get spot rate for transactions, the rate shouldn't be this low.
  Westpac is the only one I checked, but it is higher.

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  +1 vote

  Gaz1 on 19/04/2011 - 15:26 ¶

  They should say "no added commission". The banks tend to add a flat fee onto the transaction (about $8-$10 last time I used them). This means that if you find a rate 1% better (for example) you would need to change over $1000 to ofset the fixed fee. If you are only changing a small amount then Aust Post is quite convenient. For example, changing $500 only work out to about $1 difference between Travelex & Aust Post. Whilst Travelex don't have anywhere near the same number of locations, they are handy if you order for collection at the airport on your way overseas.