Ordinary Gweilo

The letters to the editor published by the SCMP continue to be a source of some amusement to me.  Rather too many of the letters are just tedious complaints about matters of little importance.  For example, Friday’s special souvenir "Yes, he really has resigned" issue had one correspondent complaining about the moneychangers at the airport.

Travelex have a scheme whereby if you pay an extra HK$30 fee when you purchase foreign currency you can convert it all back to Hong Kong Dollars at the same rate when you return to Hong Kong.   They presumably make money out of this scheme in two ways. Firstly by collecting HK$30 from people who forget (or can’t be bothered) to convert their foreign currency back to HKD, and secondly because people buy more foreign currency than would otherwise be the case.

On the weasel index, this only scores a 5 or 6. The main problem here is simply that their exchange rates are uncompetitive, and you’d probably be better off changing money in a Hong Kong bank before you go to the airport or in a local bank when you arrive at your destination, or using your ATM card when you arrive.  The common sense advice is to convert the minimum amount at the airport, but obviously Travelex want you to change as much as possible. Hence this scheme, and in my opinion paying the HK$30 fee is probably the least of your problems!

Anyway, the letter writer was not complaining about the way the scheme works, but rather that she had been unable to take advantage of it:

I went to the Travelex counter with my original invoice to change my money back to Hong Kong dollars for a fee of $30. I was advised that this could not be done, as I had not purchased the buyback receipt at the time of purchase. Staff then produced a brochure which said: "Offer conditional on presentation of the original `Buy Back Plus’ purchase receipt and passport/identity card when returning Hong Kong dollar or foreign currency."

On the billboard advertisements there is no mention about paying the $30 at time of purchase, nor did the counter staff offer the option when I changed my money. A simple "Would you like our Buy Back option?" would suffice. As exchange rates at the airport are quite competitive, I had changed extra money on the assumption that I could change my money back at the same rate for $30. We all know that exchange dealers make their money on the difference in spread, so it is in the company’s best interest not to push this product.

Well, I’m not sure about that – I think they would want to offer the Buy Back option to all their customers (especially people who believe that their rates are "quite competitive"), so I doubt that there is any trickery involved.