Mark makes some excellent points. Use the invoice rate as your guide. This trip is going to be waaaay more expensive at 6 rand to the $ vs. 7 rand to the $. The South African rand is a lightly traded currency, so there can be meaningful changes on a day-to-day basis. Finally, we don't get the published rate as our trades are small relative to the reference interebank rates.

Using Leslie's handy link, the average rate over the past three years is 6.60, high 7.97 and low 5.54. My target transfer rate is aggressive! I will time my transfers depending on how the news and economic picture develops over time. Those of you who have dual currency trades have the opportunity and challenge to keep track of both rates to seek optimal changes.

Pat and Ray, options are an interesting idea. Can you trade them on the Canadian markets? Leslie's link will provide the historical CAD/ZAR rate data. You can figure out if the premium paid on the option allows you to set an advantageous floor to your exchange rate. I'm not aware of a readily accessible market for retail investors to in trade USD/ZAR options. I'm too cheap to pay the premiums, anyway, and unwilling to take the risk of an unfavorable move if I earn the premium by writing the option. LOL!

I use at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange page, as I get a quick visual on the exchange rate, price of gold and stock market values. http://www.jse.co.za/ It's live through about 8 am EST. It's 7.3385 right now.

Let's hope the currency shifts continue to move in our favor. Happy speculating!

Cheers, Anne