Back in the day I used to take out my inner sole on my trainers and stick a couple of grand in each trainer..Then tied my laces up tight! I wont mention where I put it once in Manila! In recent years I have a BPI account and put all my PHP in there.. The the most I can lose now is a local ATM card!
I cant really say..except that I had to air it all out for a bit before handing it over to a money changer!
I would also take a credit card for purchases (not cash withdrawal) There are a few credit cards that don't slam on fees for purchasing in foreign currency and the Aqua Reward card even gives cashback. Plus, you not only get the free Noddle reports (from CallCredit) but also also Noddle alerts as well for free - very useful to keep tabs on your credit status whilst overseas.
But you usually have to pay for Noddle alerts - if you have an Aquacard you get Noddle alerts for free. If you got an Aquacard and already have Noddle (like I did) you can then add the Noddle alerts for free.
Sorry Howerd, I meant you can sign up with Noddle and view your credit reports and so on as opposed to using Experian where you have to pay £10 a month for the same.
Yes, I understand, Timmers. Noddle has free reports (issued monthly) but also a chargeable weekly Noddle Alerts service telling you of significant changes to your credit status. You get this chargeable service (£20/year) but is free with Aqua. I think that makes the Aqua Reward card unbeatable for overseas spending (assuming you pay your bill in full each month) EDIT: Just noticed that you get the Noddle Improve Service for free as well with Aqua! That normally costs £20/year as well. My niece works for CallCredit! Both Experian and Equifax charge for their services - and very expensive they are too but you can usually sign up and get one month free and cancel it before they start taking a monthly direct debit. Noddle is free because it it promotes offers with third parties and derives income that way.
at the airport should not be underestimated. The rates they have at NAIA are not the best you will find in Manila, but they are not so bad. Somebody should not be too apprehensive about changing £2-300 immeradiately upon arrival., But the rates are not the absolute best, so if you need to change money at a somewhat higher level, such as £500-1000 plus, then go to a street moneychanger. just like in the UK, you will find the best rates anywhere in the Philippines are in Manila, just like you will find the best rates to change money in the UK are in London - NOT the provinces. In London, the best rates you will find are in the profusion of moneychangers around the vicinity of Victoria station. There is most competition among the vendors there, and that is why the prices are low. In Manila, te equivalent area is Ermita/Malate. I no longer bother with Filipino ATM's for my annual 122 day trips to the Philippines.and have now changed to cash-only. I will not ordinarily expect, to use an ATM at all. the last straw was when BPI changed their annual each-time withdrawal limit from the 20,000 it was before, to 10,000 last October. as said above £50 notes are the way to go keep them in good condition, but in actual fact, they are not all that fussy about the condition of British money. They are much fussier about the condition of US $100 bills, than they are about UK £50s. Filipinos are more familiar with, are more ready to accept, and trust the USA currency more, than any other foreign currency. You may call it somewhat superstitious if you will. But it's true. 10-15 years ago there was much more of a need to bring US money to the Philippines than there is now. Back then, you could find yourself in the sticks somewhere and you would only have a low chance, or at least a job on, to exchange any currency that wasn't US dollars. That has changed now that every Palawan Pawnshop in the Philippines has entered into the foreign exchange business. Their rates aren't great. But now you can change British pounds, Aussie and Canadian dollars, Kuwaiti dinar, and all sorts, in any hick town in the Visayas that is big enough to have a Palawan Pawnshop, which basically makes it anywhere of about 20,000 population, and above. The previous need to take US dollars cash to the Philippines, no longer exists.
No one should consider changing money at the airport the rates are not just bad but are in fact utterly lousy, if the standard good money changer is giving you P 66 on the official interbank rate of P 67.5 the airport will give you P 60 - P 62, at those rates I am being gouged and I won't convert more than enough for a taxi. To be honest I prefer to take enough peso home to the UK when I leave that I don't have to change any cash for a couple of days after I get back to the Philippines. Transferring to a Philippine account using a money transfer service like Western Union or WorldRemit is far preferable where possible. The best exchange rate I get there for cash is in a money changer that is embedded in the Pure Gold supermarket on the southern edge of Metro Manila, he would give me P 66.5 or better on an interbank rate of P 67.5 I use him when I need to pay the kids school fees. Other than the money changers in Harrison Plaza I would not trust any of those based in Malate, and as for those in Ermita I'd rather chew my arm off than take any risk in one of their shops, I had to get the police to stop one of them trying to cheat me out of £100 back in 2005. In general transferring to a bank is better value, and as withdrawing cash at an ATM using a local bank card is marginally safer than changing cash at a money changer as you only have to carry the cash, in local currency, back to the house, whereas with the money changer you are at risk of robbery all the way there and back again
Few years ago now, but I always got decent rates from the Western Union branded money changer in Manila Terminal 3, airside. The rate was about 2% off the interbank rate, the same as I would expect from a money changer elsewhere, and considerably better than using an ATM, about 66.1 on 67.5 interbank. I suspect Western Union branches use standard rates, the same as McDonald's branches serve standard burgers, a safe choice when you don't know the local cuisine.
this is just not true. Rates are noiwhere near as differentiated as you say. If you are getting 70 on the street in Ermita, you will be getting about 69.2 or 69.3 at the cheapest booth at NAIA T1. the rates do vary at the international airports though. T1 is the best, followed by T3 and T2 is the worst. With T2, then yes the rates are bad and I really wouldn't want to exchange more than the cost of the taxi fare, room deposit first night's expenses and so on. The differential really is quite high there, that is because it is small and there is no competition among the vendors. But when it is an arrival at T1, then it is just not much of an issue as the rates at T1 are not that bad. I tend to change money from pounds into pesos in 500 or 1000 blocks, at T1 when I arrived last October I changed about 240, just enough to give me a float for a few days in Manila and so I wouldn'r have to mess around first thing next moring going to an Ermita moneychanger. I did go to an Ermita moneychanger about 3 days later where I changed 500 GBP, I only got about 400-500 pesos more for for that 500 GBP than I would have got at the airport and that is one of the cheaper places in Ermita too, which means one of the cheapest in the entire country.. whatever you do, do not change money at Mactan Cebu airport and I would imagine any of the other provincial international airports either. The rates there, unlike at T1 in Manila, really are bad. you hear 'the airport is always expensive to change money' a lot, and while it can be true, it can also be a be a bit of a myth. It depends on the airport. It is never the absolute cheapest. But it is not always as expensive as a lot of people assume. Suvarnbhumi Airport is Bangkok is the same. Rates aren't all that bad there either. They're not the absolute best you will find, but they are not so bad so as to deter somebody from changing.anything more than a minimal amount of a few pounds. You will however find people claiming on Thailand internet forums that it is really expensive to change money at Suvarnbhumi, when it just isn't. It seems to me that a lot of people just assume that airports MUST be really expensive places to change money just because it is also expensive to buy a cup of coffee there as well, but without actually bothering to check the prices. in moneychanging shops you need to be switched on, but you don't need to be paranoid. Don't assume that they want to rip you off with a sleight-of-hand trick of some sort. You know that none of the bills you have are fake, and that they would have to be be really stupid if they tried to pass you a fake 1000 or three out of maybe 34 they pass over in exchange for ten UK £50s. If there is business cards on the counter, take one and let them see you take one. Look professional and streetwise, count the money twice, first by carefully watching them count it, and then by counting it yourself. If I get say 34 1000s from a moneychanger I wrap the 1000s in an elastic band, so that in the very remote chance - a moneychanger trading out of a shop would be very stupid to do this - that one of the 1000s is a fake, I will know exactly where I got it.
The rates I quoted are from personal experience from the last time I used Terminal 1 in December 2013, they hadn't improved over any previous flight in the previous 10 years and were significantly worse GBP->PHP than the 2% off interbank which I would expect anywhere else in Manila. Regards T3 I've only been through it once so far last year and had no need to convert cash. From my first experience of converting cash in T1 maybe 11 years ago now and every random occasion that I had to convert there since I have always been gouged. Money changers, Ermita, handed over £400 got £300 worth of peso in return, I had counted out the pounds and clearly stated how much I had given them and they confirmed, what they didn't do was give me the calculation receipt in advance which any reputable shop will do, it was a long time ago and I learned from that experience. as it was I called the police stood my ground and I got my money back.
I was staying in Malate a lot more recently than that and the differentials are nothing like as large as that. If you change £500 GBP you'll receive about 400-500 pesos less at the CHEAPEST of the several booths at the airport than you will at a moneychanger in the Malate tourist area. It's enough to make you not want to change quite a large amount - like £500 or more, but not enough to make you hesitate to change about £200 initial walking-around money. the airports are different. I seem to remember Clark being pretty bad, and T2 is terrible too. I was shocked by the low rates at T2 when I arrived there from the UK in October 2014. and only changed about £20. There it really was as bad as you say, like 61 or 62 when I knew I should have been getting 67 or 68. When the differential is as bad as that and you change £500 then it really is costing you thousands, not hundreds, of pesos. Mactan Cebu is terrible as well. T3 has much better rates than T2, but they still seemed to me not as good as the rates at T1. Don't know how T4 compares.
I have a feeling that the rates for most of the money changers are set by the government on a week to week basis, I think the variation is maybe just that the government set upper and lower bounds that the shops can work to and in some of the shops that have no name details outside they are basically just rogue traders. I always look for the various BIR certificates they are supposed to display. But this still does not explain the rates I received from the airport on numerous occasions. I only ever stayed in a hotel in Manila twice and the hotel actually gave a great rate about P 97 the shop across the road the following day was offering P 88, needless to say I didn't use them. Next time I fly I have 5000 peso on me which is enough for a couple of days, kids allowance will have been in the bank anyway on the day I arrive, so hopefully the first week's food shopping will already be done before they come to pick me up, the day after I arrive I transfer cash to Ana's bank account and go take it out using her local bank card, if we use her bank's ATM's there is no charge, any other bank and she pays 11 peso.
I usually take about 500 or a thousand GBP cash and some cards. I don't have problems changing twenty pound notes and I don't find the rates at manila airport that terrible. I would also agree letting your bank know that you plan to travel. Personally I take a throw down wallet which is an old wallet with a few expired cards in it and some taxi cards and some low denomination euro notes I had lying about. II would give that to a mugger if I was robbed. I hide my cash in various locations in my bags pockets luggage and so on to spread the risk.
it is better if you have a few thousand pesos left over from the previous trip. But you shouldn't be really concerned about using a T1 moneychanging booth. They keep redesigning the airport, so it's hard to keep up with it, but definitely a few years ago when you exited the main door, there was a series of banks to your left, and the ones that were the furthest away to walk, gave you the best rates. in Bangkok, the main banks at the airport there - Bangkok, Siam Commercial, Kasikorn, etc - charge exactly the same as they do everywhere else in Thailand. The rate is set centrally. You get the same price at a Bangkok Bank at Suvarnbhumi airport as you do at one of their branches in Siam Square or Chiang Mai. I don't think the same thing applies in the Philippines.
