Soaring Dollar Convinces Travellers to Pack the Spending Money Early

AUSTRALIAN travellers are locking in the benefits of a strong Aussie dollar by stocking up on US dollars well ahead of their holidays.

Flight Centre Limited executive general manager of marketing Colin Bowman said the strong recent growth in the dollar's value against the Greenback had led to a surge in interest from travellers looking to drive their holiday budgets further.

He said the company's foreign exchange business, Travel Money, had reported strong demand for US dollars, with several stores selling out of stock earlier in the week.

"Traditionally, travellers were happy to convert their holiday spending money at the airport at the prevailing rate before their flights or a day or two before they were set to take off," Mr Bowman said.

"With all of the recent commentary about the dollar's strength against its US counterpart, we are seeing travellers adopt a more strategic approach by locking in attractive rates well ahead of their holidays.

"In some instances, customers aren't travelling for another two to three months.

"Travellers are obviously very keen to stretch their holiday budgets that little bit further and are happy to lock in a good deal now."

Mr Bowman said travellers taking off to the United States also continued to benefit from the availability of cheap airfares, with Flight Centre currently advertising return flights from Sydney to Los Angeles from $920.

"This represents a saving in the order of $600 to $700 from the cost of a similar fare at the start of last year and this is before any exchange rate benefits are factored in," he said.

"The average exchange rate over the January-February period in 2009 was 66cents, compared to 95cents today.

"This means that a traveller converting $5000 into US dollars today will receive more than $1000 extra in holiday spending money:"