In Reply to: Paying in $US posted by Balibabe on Thursday, 15. October 2009 at 18:27 Bali Time:
You should be aware also that Australia Post have a maximum of $1500 as well as the minimum of $200.
In August, I stayed at a hotel that quoted us in US$ and for about 6 months before leaving I was debating if it was worth buying US currency to pay the bill (around US$1100). In the end I decided to just wait it out and pay by credit card. At the time we booked, we were looking at around AUD$1600 for the conversion, not accounting for any fees to buy US currency. As it turned out, paying by credit card, after they converted US to Rupiah, added 2% credit card surcharge and then the bank converted to Aussie dollars, it cost me AUD$1360. Obviously the dollar improved a lot from the time we booked to the time we stayed and paid the bill, around 6 1/2 months later.
I think a lot of it comes down to how far ahead you book and what happens with currencies during that time. Had we asked the hotel to quote us in Aussie dollars, we'd have paid a lot more.