 |
||
 |
||
|
1. MONEY 2. TIPPING
1. MONEY, MONEY, MONEY MATTERS GENERAL: Local Currency: Chinese currency is called “Renminbi” (Ren Min Bi) abbreviated as “RMB” (meaning "people's currency") and is also known as “Yuan” (Yoo-Awn) – similar to our “dollar” and “buck” – and the terms RMB and Yuan are interchangeable. Sample of 100 Yuan or 100 RMB :
It is denominated in yuan, referred to as kuai in everyday speech. The yuan is divided into 10 jiao (colloquially called Mao). Each jiao is divided into 10 fen. There are large notes for l00, 50, 5, 2 and 1 yuan and small notes for 5, 2, and 1 jiao, and coins and notes for 5, 2, 1 fen and 1 yuan. There is no limit to the amount of foreign currency you can take into China but US Customs requires you to declare any amount of $10,000 or more before you depart the US. Traveler’s checks are changed at a slighter better rate than cash. All major American traveler’s checks are accepted by the Bank of China. International credit cards may be used to draw cash at larger branches and for payment in international hotels. In most other cases only cards issued in China are acceptable. The money exchange rate in China is currently set by their government and is usually the same at all locations (airports, hotels, banks, boat) with little or no gouging and little or no extra fees. As a result, we personally never choose to exchange any USD (US Dollars) into the local currency until we arrive in China. Most of you will be making a connection between flights in Beijing en route to Shanghai and may have the opportunity to exchange money at the Beijing airport during that layover. The hotel front desks (and the ship front desk) are all equipped for money exchange and you can get local currency after you check into your hotel on your first night or in the morning before departure on the first day of the tour. You can also exchange some money at the San Francisco International Airport prior to going through security for your departure if you want to have a little ready Chinese money in your pocket before you leave the US, but the exchange rate will not be quite as good as it will be in China. You will find ATM machines are easy to find and fairly easy to use in China. The Bank of China is also excellent when available. The exchange rate is still pretty stable between China and the US, although it is not quite as good as a few years ago. A great website for checking worldwide rates is www.xe.com. USD = United States Dollars and CNY = China Yuan Renminbi
1.00 CNY = 0.146474 USD
1 Yuan = about 14 cents 10 Yuan = about $1.40 20 Yuan = about $2.80 100 Yuan = about $14 1000 Yuan = about $140 $1 = about 7 RMB, $10 = about 71 RMB, $100 = about 714 RMB. You might want to copy or cut out the above section and carry it with your local Chinese currency as a reminder to aid you with purchases while in China. I purchased a great little money converter at Wal-Mart in their travel department a few years ago and use it to negotiate with vendors. They punch in their price & then I punch in what I want to pay - breaks the language barrier quite nicely - and you can convert back & forth between both currencies by pre-setting the rate so you’ll know what you are actually paying – no math skills required! I have not seen that converter since but know there are others out there available from travel stores and web sites. Here is a link for a $14.85 combo calculator/converter/travel alarm clock sold by Magellans online: http://www.magellans.com/store/Translators___Currency_ConvertersAC025?Args= or by calling toll-free 1-800-962-4943). Travelers’ Checks - We always carry travelers’ checks - but only as a back-up and have used them only once. With today’s clever computers and printers, some foreign banks are now reluctant to cash them and some hotels are suspicious of any brand other than “American Express” (which are easily verified). You should check to see if your alternate choice of brand has any information on that problem. Our tour operator, Mr. K C Ma, has promised that the all hotels and the ship are prepared to cash the travelers’ checks for you. ATM machines are available at the airports and in or near the hotels and provide an easy way to replenish your local currency as needed. Larry can always be depended on to have scouted out the nearest ones. The one concern is that they could run out of money quickly if we all hit them at the same time. We have always used them successfully but there are extra fees charged, often by the banks on both ends. Also, be sure to notify your bank of your upcoming trip to China and the date span of the tour - PLUS establish the daily withdrawal limit you desire, per card, with your bank at least one week before you depart. I suggest you let them know that you are making note of the date, time, and person with whom you spoke as a record to prove you advised them. We have given a timely notice and still had the system fail us while in China. This is why we carry travelers’ checks as a back-up. CASH: We usually start with close to $300 cash on each of us in local currency and replenish as we spend. Some of the local ATMs in China have a daily or individual request limit of 2000 RMB and the current exchange rate shows $300 USD is currently equal to 2,048.40 CNY or RMB). If you run into a 2000 RMB limit, it will then give you a local currency amount that is equal to about $292.912 USD ($293) - based on the exchange rate of 1/22/10). Major credit cards are accepted by all major establishments, museums and shopping venues, plus all the hotels and on the cruise ship. Typical of cruises, everything purchased or ordered (beyond what is included as standard on the cruise) will be charged to your cabin by signing a slip each time - and then pay the final bill at the front desk on the last night after the on-board farewell banquet. The three shore excursions, while optional, are included in the tour price. Tipping, of course, is extra, and I will be covering the tipping expected by the guides, bus drivers, and boat crew in a later section to be E-mailed a;pmg with a chart also included in your tour package. Be sure to call the credit card companies well before you leave to advise them of your travel dates for China so they won’t shut the cards off thinking they are stolen – again, make a note of the date and time called and the person who took the information. It is a good idea for each person to select two different cards and each one carry them in two separate but safe places. Then make copies of each and exchange these copies with your spouse or roommate. Be sure to record on each copy the international number to call if your card goes missing (usually found on the back of each card – so I just copy both sides of each card and verify that I can read the numbers). Check with your credit card companies to see what fees they will charge for usage in China as this will vary from card to card and you may wish to choose cards with the lowest fees for obvious reasons. DEBIT CARDS – NO! I do NOT recommend you use a debit card for any purchases or payments. Since the money is immediately transferred, it is much harder to later correct any errors you may discover. Use a credit card instead since it has a much better protection for you. Back-up Copies: While you’re at it, make a copy of your ATM card and your passport main page as well as your credit cards and exchange all those copies with your traveling partner. Remember the Travel Aire rule of “Divide and Copy” - actually it should be “Copy & Divide” - so if you lose something, the traveling partner will have a copy of it to help you, and vice versa – just be sure that the copies are in completely separate and safe locations from the items. Pack a large manila envelope on the bottom of your carry-on suitcase. This can be used to store your miscellane-ous papers such as all those copies for your partner plus all your purchase receipts (may need for US Customs), postcards, guidebooks, and souvenir brochures, etc. I place my manila envelope underneath (inside) the zippered lining of the carry-on bag so both Larry and I know where to find it. Place a clear Zip-lock bag on top of the main section of your checked bag that carries a copy of your basic ID (full name as shown on passport) and a copy of both the Itinerary sheet and hotel sheet (both will be included per person in your tour package) to aid in retrieving a lost bag should that extremely rare event ever occur.
The following admonition will be repeated as often as necessary to avoid disaster: ******** NEVER, NEVER, NEVER pack your passport or airline tickets (including any of the new e-ticket print-out sheets or any given you for the 4 domestic flights in China) in your checked bag OR carry-on bag !!!!!! And do not discard what you may think are carbon copies of used tickets if any old-fashoned hard-copy tickets are given to you. I have horror stories to tell about BOTH! The safest places to carry these items are in a waist and/or neck travel pouch that can be worn under (or on top of) your outer clothing – especially on the days that we will be flying to our next destination and also on our final day - when we fly home. You can find these in any travel department, drug store, Walmart, or via Magellan’s catalogue, etc. It is OK to store all important papers, passport, credit cards and money in your hotel or ship's cabin room safe or in the safety deposit boxes available on board the cruise ship. You can also choose to store the not-yet-needed airline "tickets" or e-ticket print-out sheets in your carry-on bag when we fly – perhaps in that manila envelope – but your passport and the appropriate airline "tickets" MUST be on your person and ready for use on the each of the days we fly to the next city or before we fly home. Check to be sure you have them at the ready BEFORE leaving the hotel and boarding the bus for each airline flight. As airlines continue to convert to the new e-ticket sheets, the guide(s) may handle all that for you and then provide you with your boarding card prior to each flight's check-in and boarding process. 2. TIPPING and using US Dollars I am updating a tipping chart that I will be providing you in your package. This year I am advised that they once again prefer to receive tips in US Dollars but they must be free of ANY tears (including tiny ones) and also basically unwrinkled to be accepted as tips and for street vendors in China. I will be giving some suggestions to make the tipping process easier once again this year. NOTE: China views "tips" as expected "thank-you's" at the minimum suggested levels. We estimate the average total tipping for the whole tour to be $160 total per person for the entire 19-day tour based on all previous years and based on the usual, normal and customary rate expected. I will be updating a chart for you to help guide you. We have tried many different ways of handling this and have finally returned to having you do your own rather than pass an envelope (where the total collected too often fell too short of the normal minimum) or pre-collect (the latter required we declare all that cash leaving the US and this worried us until it was all disbursed). The guides and bus drivers are paid little or nothing and survive by their tips, so it is important to understand that this is a normal ingredient of a tour in China. The chart shows when to expect to have the tip money ready and how to calculate it. If you were displeased in any way, you are free to give little or nothing - and hopefully that will never be the case! You are also free to give more if the performance exceeded your expectations. They will accept US $ bills (in whatever denominations you can use for each person – two people can combine in order to use higher denomination bills if preferred). You will not be able to get any US money broken down into smaller denominations while in China – they can only convert it to Chinese currency. The normal procedure is to give the local Bus Driver and the City or Local Guide their total tip before leaving that city, etc. – as you exit the bus for the last time for the bus driver ($1 per day per person) and before you go through security at each airport for the city /local guide ($2 per day per person). The chart shows how many days’ worth is expected for each tipping occurrence. There will be times when they are only with us part of a day and then we will have another set in the next destination on the same day. While you may feel that you are paying double, you are really enjoying the efforts of two sets (one set from each city). In each case the local driver and guide have come out to greet us and be with us and have given of their time and service. When you hand them your tip before leaving them for the last time, you will bring great smiles to their faces. Our experience in China has been that they are all well-trained and try very hard to please you. If that is not your experience, you can reflect that in your tip – also, please let Larry or me know if there is a problem with anyone. The boat tipping is handled a little differently. On the final night, a tip envelope will be left in your cabin or placed on your table following the Farewell Banquet. It will instruct you to tip at a greater rate than the $10 per day per person that we show on our chart. It will also tell you to calculate it based on 6 days instead of the 5 we show. DO NOT use that envelope and do not use their higher rate suggestions. Our tour operator has negotiated a lower rate for us for $10 per day X 5 days pp for the whole crew. For two prior years, the total tips submitted by our group fell far short of the basic expectation – even at the lower negotiated rate. We personally had to make up the short fall of about $1500 in 2006 and then about $800 short in 2007 – in order to be able to reserve a 5-star ship the next year. We cannot afford to continue to do this at our small mark-up. They count it all out in front of us so we all see it all together. As a result, we began asking all of you to give me your boat tip at some point on the 1st day of cruising (no shore excursion that day). I can then check off the list each name and the expected $50 pp so that on the last night, our tour operator and we can present the total tip amount collected in person to the ship’s manager with no embarrassment from an unexpected shortage that we have to cover. This reassures them of us in their eyes! It is not a chore I look forward to but I do understand the “saving face” aspects. You will see that the whole crew works very hard to please you throughout the cruise, so a $50 total tip per person is more than reasonable to cover ALL the wait-staff throughout the ship as well as the cleaners and laundry personnel, etc. NOTE: this does not include the River Guide (as noted on the tipping chart) and he/she is tipped the same as a city/local guide is tipped during our land touring at $2 pp per day. The boat will assign tables to our group and the waitress assigned to each table will work very hard for you and also hope that one or more of you will be pleased enough to leave him or her a little something extra (in person) apart from whatever share she will receive from the total tip presented for the whole crew. That is also up to you entirely, of course, and should be based on your own experience. The boat crew will also be providing entertainment each evening, and there will be marvelous craftsmen onboard creating and selling their wares. Side Note: Because of our special VIP status, I am able to run WW II documentaries (“Flying Tigers” and the like) as well as WW II movies and other appropriate material. You will find these on the 2nd DVD channel of the TV in your room. They run other programs on their Channel 1, but often these are movies in Chinese with English sub-titles. I provide my choices as a way for you to go to your room and relax and put on something in English. There will be plenty of choices of things to do on the boat and there will be three shore excursions (included in the tour price) offered – they are optional but I encourage you to participate!
This page last updated August 3, 2010 |
||
