Western Union rates

[Dim Witty]

What does it cost to send money from the US to Argentina? Factoring the cost to send dollars and the favorable exchange rate received from WU, can (for example) $1,000 in pesos buy U$S 1,000 at a casa de cambio?

 

[steveinbsas]

What does it cost to send money from the US to Argentina? Factoring the cost to send dollars and the favorable exchange rate received from WU, can (for example) $1,000 in pesos buy U$S 1,000 at a casa de cambio?

I pay Westea Union a fee of about U$S 35 dollars each month to transfer U$S 700 and recieve a little over $1.000.000 in pesos in Argentina. The fee is in addition to the U$S 700.

At the "current exchange rate of 1475 pesos to one dollar, a transfer of U$S 1,000 (one thousand US dollars would result in a deposit of $1.475.000 (one million, four hundred, seventy-five thousand pesos. The exact rate would be different when buying dollars at a casa de cambio, so it probably would cost more than $1.500.000 pesos to buy U$D 1,000.

 

[Dim Witty]

I pay Westea Union a fee of about U$S 35 dollars each month to transfer U$S 700 and recieve a little over $1.000.000 in pesos in Argentina. The fee is in addition to the U$S 700.

At the "current exchange rate of 1475 pesos to one dollar, a transfer of U$S 1,000 (one thousand US dollars would result in a deposit of $1.475.000 (one million, four hundred, seventy-five thousand pesos. The exact rate would be different when buying dollars at a casa de cambio, so it probably would cost more than $1.500.000 pesos to buy U$D 1,000.

Thanks Steve. So in your case the cost to send is about 5%. Do you know if that rate applies for any amount?

 

[LongtimeExpat]

Thanks Steve. So in your case the cost to send is about 5%. Do you know if that rate applies for any amount?

If you transfer US1500 with Western Union from the US, the rate as a percentage of the transaction drops to about 3%.

If you're really trying to squeeze out the last couple of pesos, MoneyGram lately has often been paying even more, but you have to calculate both every time to see which one pays more. One day about two weeks ago, MoneyGram paid 45000 pesos more than Western Union, after considering all fees, on a transfer of US1500, but usually the difference isn't that much.

The other thing nice about MoneyGram is that if you have MercadoPago, you can receive the transfer in a couple minutes.

Again, all this is US to Argentina. Rates and fees from other countries are often different.