15

LOL, you are a funny man Trap....have fun in Cuba and Oz....SD, good spelunking.

16

Prior to leaving for my annual Aug trip, I asked for actual experience regarding the exchange of Am Ex checks. The question was due to the change in exhange rates that I had experience in April. I had reported that the checks had been hit with the 10% graveman and that the actual result was slightly lower than actual paper USD. It was suggested that the airport Cadecas did not apply the 10% graveman. I just got back and I am here to tell you that the airports DO NOT exchange AMX Checks. Banco Metropolitano still do not. Again I was directed to BFI in Habana but I did not go. I brought the checks back and deposit the back into my bank account.

17

Thanks for that update, #16. My suggestion that TCs are difficult to negotiate outside of Hotels and resorts was poo-pooed here but is clearly what's so. The nuisance factor on using them, if you are not staying near a BFI or in a tourist area, however, makes them very unattractive to those of us who do neither.

18

#16, your experience and mine are different, although I only asked about them and did not try to change any. I will check again next month. Could it be teller specific? I doubt it.

19

I hit four banks all over West Havana before I found the BFI at Quinta y 92. Even then it was the very sort of long-lined process I hate and have other options that do not require it of me. I, too, returned with a bunch of my TCs.

It had nothing to do with "teller error". I spoke with the branch managers each time I was refused. BFI is the only bank I am aware of where they can be redeemed.

20

Pelo, no I mean when a teller at a Cadeca just does not feel like it. I have seen them say "no", we do not have any CUPs and then give them out to another customer. So if AMEX is a hassle and they are "busy" on the phone then "no" is the answer. Probably not.
But it is strange and #16, I am not "poo-pooing" you. I just relate my experience or what I was told on site. Things like this can happen in Cuba.

21

I hear you, my friend. If there is any similarity twixt you and I it is that neither of us has time for, or any interest in, poo-poo de toro.

All I ever offer here is what I have personally experienced.

You are a fat-cat, my friend. Good for you is my sense of things. What differentiates you from the elitist mob that disparages here is that you may have been born on third base, but you never thought it was because you thought you had just hit a triple.................jejeje. Trust me, they do.

Most Americans are completely unaware of the unique issues about money and Cuba, or how rare and unique and sometimes hugely important, and how problematic they might be. You have a million options they do not, my friend. Hell, everyone else in the rest of the universe have options these newbie Americans just don't have. That is real.

I have no fiscal connections to CT. Nada. I recommend them because it is real and accurate and important to recommend them. They offer Americans what every other person from every other country enjoys with their debit cards when they plunge into Cuba.

The question more important to ask is not why I recommend them. The question to ask is why so many non-Americans (anti-Americans?) spend such an inordinate amount of time trying to fallaciously describe the CT option as they do, and to attack me personally for recommending them in the first place.

It is such a simple, such an easy, and a cost-free option. One has to ask why anyone would spend such an inordinate amount of time attacking it?