Confession – it took us about three days to work out how currency (peso) operates in Argentina. It started with us getting about 190 pesos to the pound when we took cash out of an ATM. Our Buenos Aries guide explained that we were doing it wrong and that she would provide us with cash for dollars or euros (not pounds) at a rate that equated to 350 pesos. This is known as the “blue market” (sounded black to us), the reason being that Argentina has 100% inflation and no foreign currency reserves so everyone wants hard currency. The cash she provided was accepted without any questions and “blue” seemed a commonly used term.
So far so good, but we then realised that there was a further twist to the story when paying on a debit card in shops and restaurants. The transaction went through at the official rate, but two or three days later we received a rebate from our bank representing approximately 40% of the transcation value. We discovered that late in 2022, the government introduced the MEP dollar rate for foreign debit and credit cards in an attempt to defeat the cash based blue market while encouraging foreign currency spend by tourists. The MEP rate is fixed at about 95% of the blue rate. This is further complicated by different arrangments with different credit/debit card companies. Our rebates were from mastercard, however VISA uses the MEP rate for the originating transcation and it appears that AMEX use the official rate with no refund.
Shilli-Fully Travels 