A slightly painful lesson in foreign-currency excursions

[JLMoran]

I got the refunds for my two directly-booked items in Reykjavik, and a slightly painful lesson about the risks one takes in doing anything involving foreign currencies. Because the prices given for both the private transfer to the Blue Lagoon and the tickets to the lagoon itself were given in ISK (Icelandic Kroner), that's the amount used for the actual refund, not what was paid in USD. The exchange rate from ISK to USD has gotten a lot worse from when I originally booked, so my 90% refund on the Blue Lagoon tickets worked out to 78% once converted to USD. And my 100% refund on the private transfer was more like 90%.

I realize there's nothing I can do about it, this was just a lesson I had to learn about foreign travel. But I want others here to be aware. Only advice I can give is to wait until you're as close to the date of the thing you want to book as you're comfortable doing, assuming it's not something wildly popular that's known to sell out way in advance. That way, you can hopefully minimize any big swings in the exchange rate if you find yourself needing to cancel.

If I had any other net losses around this trip I would leverage my trip insurance to see if that would cover the gap, but it's less than what I paid for the policy so I'd rather still carry the policy over to next year's rebooked date.

[sk8erguy1978]

Yeah. Something I never put thought into but makes sense. You didn't pay in USD, you converted USD to ISK and then paid. Same would happen in reverse ISK to USD to credit card. Thanks for the heads up!