Kakeibo: Currencies influence overseas transportation cost.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Nowadays the Japanese, as well as South Korean currencies - in comparison to the $US- are dropping, which can be of benefit for $US holders and those currencies that are actually binding with the $US. Believe it or not, not only the consumer goods we are purchasing can vary with currencies, but also for services, such as goods and passenger-transportation as well. The chart below compares the $US to Korean Won. As you can see, there is a time-line for a period of 12 months on the chart.

Back in 2018, we used to get 1107.73 Korean Won / and just a year later, there was an increase of almost 5 %, which definitely makes it more attractive to go for South Korea, instead of countries such as China Mainland / or Hong Kong in particular. Certainly there are also other currencies where we could take advantage from, but if we could get into too much detail, we may be getting side tracked

here and ending up in comparing currencies only, rather than explaining how this can benefit for an average person, like you and me. Surprisingly, the Japanese Yen / as well as the Philippine Peso is actually quite disappointing these days, it's rather any competitive advantage to purchase any goods or services from those countries for time being. See, for an average citizen that has got nothing to do

with international trade and just lives his / her domestic live, a bottle of water my cost a Dollar, in Europe, it's an Euro, and in China, it's just 1 Yuan. For a local spender, that has got nothing to do with international currencies or any kind of purchases form overseas, the whole thing definitely sound boring and doesn't make any sense. Local supermarkets will always try not

to letting the consumer feel too much of inflation. So, what does it do for you and how can - at the moment- the Korean Won help you save some serious dosh, how could you possibly take advantage of South Korea at the moment, what kind of products or services could you make good use of and how does this calculation would round up?

South Korea - as of now, July 2019:

Even though it's not suggested to seek for Japanese items / services at the moment, we can make good use of their well-known Kakeibo method, a way that will let money stay in you wallet longer and not just disappear after-all.

• The very first and great thing you could do is to purchase items locally in markets, such as South Korea, because Korean products / at overseas have a set target price and it's not clear whether the trade / dealer will reduce the price.
• What better thing to do than to visit South Korea in the first place, but the question is how to get there in the most economic way / with the best price for value. What would be a great money saving thing to do is to book your next outbound flight from South Korea to overseas, instead of purchasing it from your country of origin.
• One thing you could do is to simply book an extreme low-fare-deal to South Korea, from there you may simply book a First- or Business Class Round-Trip ticket, just to compensate / make it up again to sit on the cheap seats for a while.
• Connecting over South Korea, discovering a new territory or just to hang out with old friends, the Korean local cuisine and a local shopping tour would be definitely also something to consider, simply compare the pricing of your local domestic household items / daily-consumer-goods-items and do the Math.
• The other day, I did actually also fly outbound China via Seoul (South Korea) to Los Angeles (California), flight via Seoul - as a stopover location- with a dropping South Korean currency also makes it more attractive, booking tickets from and to LAX and outbound to Abu Dhabi for example has been almost half the price than flying outbound Beijing / Shanghai / Guangzhou / Chengdu to Abu Dhabi. Since it's all paid in USD and the AED is binding, the rates are not being affected by any exchange rates / and route itself is not very well frequented, since - as far as I could tell - most of the Americans are afraid of the Middle East in the first place, not all of them, I did not mention that part, please be aware.

Just as an example, this is getting very interesting:

Having identified that there is a drop of almost 5 % in South Korea, I did check several air-fares and realized that a two-way-Business-Class ticket with Etihad Airways, from Seoul, via Abu Dhabi to Frankfurt just costs around US$ 2,500 / which is approximately EUR 2,200. Flying from China Mainland instead, given the exchange rates from RMB to USD / it has become a night-mare and rather expensive to purchase overseas currencies with the RMB at the moment / which means that the flight-ticket pricing is rather soaring up like an eagle, basically they are up to the roof and it's not advised to purchase neither Chinese domestic / nor international airline carrier tickets outbound China at all. For the China government, it's definitely great to scare away their citizens

and rather prefer to travel within their own borders, hence, foreigner currencies have become crazy expensive and local domestic air-fares / train tickets are still very very extremely low, in comparison to international fares, which is all the same for the goods and logistics industry, not only for passenger-transportation at all. Truth to be told, the import into China is always booming, especially when considering that the majority of Chinese citizens prefer to buy imported, rather than local products, they just simply don't trust their own folks, but this is going to be explained in another chapter, not today, anytime soon, no worries here.

Here is what I got on Etihad Airways, and how much does a ticket cost outbound Beijing / Shanghai:

All I did is to download the Etihad Airways Mobile App and to check out the fares, I did also try out Korean Air, Asiana, and other domestic carriers in fact, however, this one is remarkable. The reason for choosing this Etihad example, is quite simple: as it can be seen on the left hand side, although there is a lay-over from 24th September to Monday 7th / and October 27th to February 19th, which has been willingly chosen through the "Multiple Destination Section", only the price of one round-trip-ticket has been charged and what is better than to even stay in Abu Dhabi for a month or two, or even three, and to either find some business to do, take it as opportunity to meet some clients, friends or to just use this area as "connection-point", to book another air-ticket to another

destination instead. For example flights from cities such as Mumbai are extremely low as well, and flights from and to Mumbai as well, you may be having more options than you think you are in getting around and boost your international sales or just discover new areas for the best price for value. Outbound flights out of the UAE area extremely high and it's not recommended to go for any long-haul out of Abu Dhabi, Dubai or Sharjah at all, it's just not worth it, to pay more than double than what you are paying from surrounding countries with better currency rates / and what's better than killing several birds just with one stone or two. That screenshot - out of the Etihad Airways Mobile App - actually only shows Beijing as outbound flight, which is already much lower than outbound Shanghai.

Believe it or not, for all the same airline carrier, the same aircraft type, basically all the same seat, pricing varies from US$ 6,341 to US$ 8,045 outbound Beijing / Shanghai, which is basically insane. For that fare, you can book a low-cost ticket from China Mainland to South Korea instead and cut a huge amount of cost. The other few thousand bucks you are basically saving up can be either used for some shopping / or alternatively to just check-in some fancy hotel and have some wonderful meals / night-out with friends, otherwise just keep it in your pocket and use it as emergency funds, do whatever you like. It just doesn't make any sense to pay for - all the same - such fortune and by not even getting any more air-miles, but less.

Air miles, this is just on top-of-that all. Airline carriers such as Etihad Airways even offer a direct air-miles to cash conversion, which is for example, as seen on the right hand-side, 21,878 air miles offer around US$ 147 as a cash-back, and if you did apply for a company account in addition to that, you can almost double this amount for each round-trip. That in turn means that the air fare actually is even lower than on any of those screenshots / actual ticket-prices mentioned previously.

Do you think that is all? That is everything you can do and get out of a simple air-ticket-purchase, no wait, there is more: most of the credit cards offer 2-3% cash-back on any purchases and the other SPG World MasterCard Credit

Card offers 6 Hotel Points for each 1 USD spent, which includes any purchases you can think of, even swiping that card for a banana in the supermarket, already offers such hotel points, which even, on top of that, gives you that competitive advantage, to even stay for an either extreme low price at any Marriott or SPG Hotel, or even free of charge. So let me summarize, there are platforms that offer cash-back for credit-card-transactions / extra hotel points, as well as cash-back on miles-flown. Is there anything else I did not mention, yes, right, there is even more. Ever year, there is this Emirates National Bank of Dubai Summer Promotion Offer, and please do take a seat before reading those lines below, it may blow your head off, what I am going to tell you now is just absolutely astonishing.

Just to get this right, and the check-list:

1. Currency Exchange Rates / departure city CHECK
2. Credit-Card Cashback / e.g. Hotel Points Cash-Back, CHECK
3. Air-Miles-Cash-Back, CHECK

Hold on there is a number FOUR:

Truth to be told, US% and AED are binding for over 40 years, which makes it more attractive for AED account holders to earn and burn AED / because it is basically all the same to the US$ (0.00% yes, no kidding), and the number four is the cherry on the top, get an additional cash-back in form of gift vouchers at EMAAR shopping malls. Well, the promotion may differ from bank to bank, but just ensure that you are subscribed to your banks promotions and newsletters just to receive their offers. This summer, 2019, is definitely remarkable and there is a lot of extra bonus out there, which doesn't have to necessarily include this fourth special summer promotion offer.

Let me know if there are any questions may have and be reminded that South Korea and Etihad Airways, Marriott SPG has just been an example, I'm sure that there are also other countries / carriers / credit cards offer alternative or better options, however, I got a huge list of research about countries and carriers that I could simply could not all get into one single article.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. 

If there are any questions that may arise in the meantime, please feel so free to contact me directly at (86-21) 6157 4954 or drop me an email to max (at) prscenterprises (dot) com. 

Kind regards from the very city centre of Shanghai, The People’s Republic of China,

Max-Alex Agostini

PRSC APAC Procurement Team a division of People's Republic Sourcing Channel Limited Corp..

Chief Executive Officer 

People's Republic Sourcing Channel Limited (Shanghai, CN)

People's Republic Sourcing Channel Limited (Beijing, CN)

People's Republic Sourcing Channel Limited (Dubai, UAE)