In Reply to: Exchange posted by Tinnupbooey on Monday, 3. September 2012 at 10:20 Bali Time:
You might see in media that our dollar is worth US$1.03 but that is at the bank level - not at the level that the average person exchanges cash - so it's quite misleading.
You would be extremely unlikely to find anywhere that will give you US$1.03 for your Australian dollar because they need to make money on the exchange. It's a theoretical rate, basically as far as you or I are concerned.
As an example, the best and cheapest exchange I've found around where I am is "The Currency Exchange". They have a better rate than any bank, currency exchange, Aus Post etc when I was looking to buy US$2500 last year. Trust me, I did loads of calculations of rates and fees etc to find my best buy over that sort of amount.
At the moment, they will give you US$0.98 for your Australian dollar, so US$25 will cost AUD$25.27 to buy. When you round that up to whole dollars (since the VOA counter don't want your 27c) that's basically $26.
What it boils down to is the rate you see on the news and in the papers is not the rate available to the average person exchanging cash for their holidays.