Just couldn’t believe my eyes when I had some time to kill at the Hong Kong international airport last week and had a look at the Travelex foreign exchange rates.
The spreads that they were asking on most major currencies to/from Hong Kong dollars was completely out of line with usual spreads that the fx shops charge. These weren’t making any sense at all.
If you thought that more than 10% spread on USD, EUR and RMB is bad, wait until you see the other currencies.
These rates are so bad that I don’t know where to even start.
Conclusion
I cannot even remember the last time I would have used one of these exchanges at the airports as they are almost always a very bad deal for a consumer. Even then, these rates that Travelex charges are the worst that I have ever come across.