TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin As of Oct 1 2022 - Canada dropping all Covid-19 border restrictions

Finally, as of Oct 1 2022, SXM to Canada. 🇨🇦 No more Covid-19 travel restrictions .

ArriveCan App not necessary
No mandatory masks on planes or at airports
No random covid-19 testing upon arrival at border
No quarantines
No required proof of Covid-19 vaccination upon entry

This will make traveling back and forth to SXM much easier.

Drphilsxm

https://beta.ctvnews.ca/national/politics/2022/9/26/1_6084119.amp.html

Hooray. We have 2 trips booked in the next 6 months and this makes it easier.

We heard the news today, fantastic, way less stress. We are booked for eight weeks from mid December to mid February.
Now, if our CAD would go back up.

Oh ya that CDN $ situation is the worst now than last year. We are approaching 50 cents on the US dollar. So that resort rate of say $10,000 is actually $20,000 CDN. OUCH.

Good for us.👍But I don't think its at that rate. More like around 70%.

Not so Scubaman. The rate today was $1US = $1.37CDN which means our dollar is worth .63 cents US. But that is Prime Rate that the banks pay to exchange currency with the Bank of Canada
But when it comes to us regular folks to exchange currency with our banks or currency exchange companies, they add up to 10% for their service which means I'm getting 53 cents on the dollar today. So, if you're willing to exchange some of your US dollars at 70% we need to talk

Hello/bonjour,

Charlies Currency Exchange in downtown Vancouver (827 Granville St) posts cad/usd is $0.7231 at this moment, live rates . Charliescurrency.com

and knightbridgefx states $0.7303 at this very moment. Though caveat, live rates require an email. knightbridgefx.com.

For more tears, the forcast isn't any better for the near future.


safe travels

CC

Best to use your credit cards for best rate.

Nope Scuba that doesn't work either. If you use a CDN credit card on island you are charged the current exchange rate plus 3/4% for this service so it is better to have US account here to draw on and at least save 3/4%.

Better get a no fee card unless it's not available in Canada.

Yes Scuba, we do have no fee cards. So there are two options to Canadians.

And many credit cards (I have three both MC and Visa) charge their current exchange rate plus 2.5% on usd . We do have usd dollar credit cards such as at TD bank, etc. https://www.td.com/ca/en/personal-banking/products/credit-cards/us-dollar/us-dollar-visa-card/ (39$ usd per year) TD U.S. Dollar Visa* Card Make purchases in U.S. Dollars without credit card foreign currency conversion fees

Either way, we are at the losing end, but we are a modern society with modern solutions... for those of us with google and time on our hands.

Just in case you plan to carry US cash with you to SXM, get it from an ATM machine rather than over the counter. Most banks - I know mine does - give a more favorable rate at the ATM because they don't have to handle it "in person". Or ask a bank employee/retiree to buy it or you - we get a break on the rates.

Whale Tail, you are making a very common mistake here when it comes to calculating currency exchange. Many people think this way - "oh, it costs $1.20cdn to buy a us $ so the rate is 80 cents, if it's $1.37 it's 63 cents, etc" where they simply subtract the extra amount from $1.00 and call it the rate.

The proper conversion is to DIVIDE us/cdn as in $1.00/$1.37 = .7299 or 73 cents, $1.00/1.20 = .8333 or 83 cents, etc. If you still are unsure, remember that math ALWAYS works both ways. The reverse is to MULTIPLY cdn x us. So at a 73 cent dollar, it takes $1.37 cdn to = $1 us
( $1.37 x .73 = $1.00)

So while the exchange rate is getting worse for us Canuks, it's not quite a bad as you think (thank goodness!)

@PrairieGirl This is where I wish there was a "like" button. Thank you for that explanation. I agree that it's a very common error, and you just saved me the time from drafting my own response!! Unfortunately, as you say, it will definitely cost more this year for all of us Canucks to stay in SXM or anywhere else that US dollars are used!!

PrairieGirl
I like your math and still trying to wrap my head around it but with your calculations I think you are assuming that I can buy US dollars at the current banking prime exchange rate without including the mark up that the banks and currency exchange companies charge. While I was at our local mall today, I checked with CIBC and Continental Currency Exchange and the current market still has the dollar at $1 US = $1.3744 CDN. This is what they would charge me at CIBC $1 US = $1.438 CDN and Continental $1 US = $1.3965 CDN. So, I may have overestimated at first, but the numbers are still bad. So, if I needed $10,000 US for example, I would have to pay $14,380. CDN at CIBC. That's the math I'm having a hard time with. But thanks for your input.

Oh guys- multiply or divide- we are getting screwed here in Canada, lol! I remember 2007-2008 when the loonie was at par with the green buck! I felt like a king, lol!
Ok now back to the grind to make some money…

@Whale Tail - the Cdn $ has taken a substantial hit in the last two days, but you can do much better than that CIBC rate! At any financial institution, the over the counter rate is always inflated because there is a risk element between when they exchange the $$ for you and then for themselves. And of course labour expense and a profit element.

My credit union has an online buy/sell platform through Concentra Financial where you do everything yourself electronically in real time. I just checked the spot rate minutes ago on $10,000 usd. It was 1.3769 or .7262 so very little markup.

If you regularly deal in FX, you should see if you can get registered with someone's version of an online trading platform!

Best rate is at an RBC ATM that dispenses US cash , if you bank with RBC that is.

This sure morphed into an exchange rate discussion instead of the original post.

And a good place to end this and get back on track.