“We could have bought six more packs of Honey Butter Almond, ” my father said sadly 😀 when I told him, after doing the math, that we would have been better off exchanging our Philippine pesos to Korean won elsewhere.
We were just too eager to have all our ducks in a row and, soon after learning our Korean visa applications were approved, went to our
Money changer in Ayala to have our pocket money converted to South Korean won. We realized soon after that we had paid much more than we’d thought we would. (I didn’t seem to have learned my lesson from when I also changed my Philippine pesos to New Taiwan dollars at the same place.) Anyway, that’s the reason I made sure to take note of the exchange rates I saw during our trip, to figure out where we could have gotten more
Korean Won Exchange Rates
Money changer because I usually buy euros — for which they have okay exchange rates — from them. That said, I really regret turning to them this year for Korean won.
To make it easier to compare with the exchange rate at other places, let’s imagine I have ₱10, 000 I needed changed to Korean won.
After we discouraged them from having their pesos changed to won where we did, the rest of our travel group — my two godmothers, my cousin, and my two nieces — decided to just bring pesos to Korea and have them exchanged upon arrival.
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That turned out to be a good decision. We basically just went to the first money changer we saw coming out of the arrival area — before the lobby — and their exchange rate was 1 PHP = 20.8 KRW.
Well, it’s not that surprising when you consider that old bit of travel wisdom that your currency is always worth more in your own country. But I certainly didn’t expect it this time and it was a pleasant surprise.
In this case, I’m talking about the money changer in the Arrivals area of Mactan Cebu International Airport. It was the end of a long day and I wasn’t able to take a pic, but I did note that their exchange rate was 1 KRW = 0.0476 PHP.
South Korean Won Coin
How about if you change your PHP to USD first, then have your USD changed to KRW when you get to Korea?
This was the advice given to my cousin by one of her friends who had been to Korea. I didn’t get the chance to personally try this out because my sister already had US dollars on hand — she gets paid in USD — and that’s what she got changed to KRW at Incheon Airport.
Doing the calculations, 10, 000 PHP would have bought 182.74 USD when exchanged at the Cebu airport, which in turn would have netted 208, 516 KRW at Incheon airport. This is only 516 KRW higher (₱22 or $0.44) than if you exchange pesos to won directly at Incheon.
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We wanted to try withdrawing money from an ATM machine in Seoul and see what the exchange rate would have been, just for comparison, but we never got around to it. 🙁 Too bad because withdrawing money from the ATM turned out to give me the best exchange rate during my Bali trip and it would have been nice to see if it was the same for Korea. A mission for next time, then?
Another thing that some people do is buy foreign currency at a Philippine bank, whether it’s the actual currency of the place they’re going to, or US dollars which they intend to exchange at their country of destination. If the latter, 10, 000 PHP would have bought roughly 196 USD at BPI , which would then have bought 223, 636 KRW at Incheon Airport — better than any of the methods described above. If you’re going to the bank anyway, you should definitely give this a shot, especially if you’re exchanging a huge amount of money where the difference between what you get at the bank and at the airport would be quite significant. The days leading up to our trip were so busy that I didn’t even think of allotting precious time for a trip to the bank…but perhaps I should have.
I’ve also been told that money changers at Myeongdong give better exchange rates than others. I didn’t see money changers while I was walking around there but maybe I just didn’t look hard enough or it was just because I wasn’t really looking out for them. What I don’t like about this is having to spend the time to look for a money changer — and then if you realize that the money changer at the airport gave better rates, you won’t be able to go back. 😀 But this is actually worth a try in the future.
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There you have it, then: a comparison of some of the best places to exchange your Philippine pesos (PHP) to Korean won (KRW). For future trips to Korea, I would definitely consider going to my bank and buying US dollars, which I would then exchange to Korean won at Incheon airport. If I don’t get the opportunity to do that, what I would do instead would be to have my Philippine pesos changed at either Cebu or Incheon airport, or maybe even at Myeongdong. What I would not do —Since I am from the Philippines, I will be writing this topic with perspective of the Philippine Peso (referred to as PHP later in this article).
During my first trip to Seoul in April 2013, I had a hard time exchanging my then US dollars (USD) to Korean won (KRW). My province does not have many KRW users, apparently. I didn’t want to go to Manila just to exchange my money so I settled with what small conversion I got, and just brought a few hundred USDs to exchange in Seoul.
Generally, USD conversion to KRW is better than PHP if you already have USD on hand. But a few cents or pesos might/will be lost if you go PHP->USD->KRW. My Dad is an OFW at that time so it’s a bit easier for me to get USD. But when he retired in early 2015, I sort of refused to exchange my PHP to USD at money changers when we planned for our October trip.
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A few weeks before our trip in October, however, I got very busy with work and school and before I know it, I have only five more days before the trip and Zero KRW. My Mom had a friend who frequents Korea so she tried to exchange some (this friend however just requested to return the KRW as is after the trip). I didn’t want to convert my PHP because the exchange rate at that short time frame was ridiculously low (0.045PHP for a KRW is crazy!).
We only had 50, 000 KRW, 20, 000 PHP and 115USD for two people when we boarded the plane to Seoul. I still need to pay the guesthouse in cash.
So how did we do it? For some people, this is already a huge amount. But we were supposed to stay in Seoul for 6 days. Shopping was also on the list (we didn’t buy anything before this trip because we want
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I am not a huge fan of credit cards before I started working. I only use cash and debit cards because I don’t want to be buried in debt. But credit cards are convenient in buying tickets online and, sometimes, huge purchases have rebates and freebies from partner organizations.
With that said, during my second trip to Seoul, I slashed my credit card at almost all stores that accept it – which is almost
stores. Only street stalls don’t accept them; every establishment is pretty much a bait for credit cards. Plus I don’t need to carry big amount of money around. Not that it’s unsafe, but you just know how it is.
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I use a supplementary BPI Gold (again, because I’m not a huge fan, I never applied for one that’s my own). I asked my Mom to activate the card for international use at our bank before the trip. I also requested to increase the limit because I don’t want to risk a rejected credit card in the middle of the trip – remember, I didn’t bring enough cash with me.
When my bill arrived, I was surprised because it has the best conversion I’ve seen. I never did like computing for conversions, so my standing point is, the closer it is to 25KRW/PHP or higher, the better. My bank’s conversion was 23.84KRW/PHP. This is a good enough conversion.
Now you won’t usually see this conversion in the Philippines. I’ve only seen this in Incheon Airport when I convert PHP to KRW. In the Philippines, we’ll go with cents.
Korean Money On Finance Account Background Stock Photo
The standard conversion in cents is 0.040 PHP for every 1 KRW. This means you have to go as close to 0.040PHP or
for a good conversion. Your PHP is more powerful in that sense. BDO for example sells KRW for
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