Is there a best time to exchange gold for gems?

Does the exchange rate rise or fall a lot during/before/after Christmas?

Often, after Christmas, players exchange their gifted Gem Cards or Christmas money for (Gems to) Gold and the exchange rate for Gold to Gems goes down.

Not when new items come up in the Gem Store, like today. Because that's the best time to exchange Gems for Gold, hence the Gold-to-Gems exchange rate skyrockets.

The best time to turn Gold into Gems was right after PoF released (and it stayed that way for a couple of weeks, if not months). So I assume the next ideal time will be with the release of the next expansion, which will be a long time from now, though.

There are various sites which track the gold to gems exchange price. Here's two I use:https://www.gw2spidy.com/gemhttps://www.gw2tp.com/gems

You can use them to get an idea of the best time of the week/month/year to buy (or sell) gems. But the time of day can make a difference too, and that's not as accurately tracked because those sites only update periodically. It's worth checking prices periodically to get a sense of how they change within the time you're usually online.

Not at current rate(~140g for 400gems).

120g for 400gems is around average so anything below is good and above is ... less good

@Ashantara.8731 said:Not when new items come up in the Gem Store, like today. Because that's the best time to exchange Gems for Gold, hence the Gold-to-Gems exchange rate skyrockets.

The best time to turn Gold into Gems was right after PoF released (and it stayed that way for a couple of weeks, if not months). So I assume the next ideal time will be with the release of the next expansion, which will be a long time from now, though.

That was due to the 250g for the griffon. There is no way to know if the next expansion would or would not have an equally large gold sink.

@Khisanth.2948 said:That was due to the 250g for the griffon. There is no way to know if the next expansion would or would not have an equally large gold sink.

True that. I had forgotten to mention this little detail, and you are right that there is no way to know - I simply assumed based on a gut feeling. ;)

@Khisanth.2948 said:Not at current rate(~140g for 400gems).

120g for 400gems is around average so anything below is good and above is ... less goodI haven't seen it around 120g for quite a while now. :(

And I remember buying gems when they were around 70g and bemoaning the times they jumped to 90!

There are best times, but they are largely unpredictable.

Sometime during Wintersday, as @Inculpatus cedo.9234 wrote above, people will be cashing in gift cards from gems to gold, and that pushes the rate down. Other things that will do it: when there's a new item available in game, including the Griffon (as @Khisanth.2948 noted), Requiem armor's nullification sigil, Winter's Presence, and some of the new legendaries.

And there are many things that spike the rate, including today's offerings, any time BL keys go on sale, any time new MountFits are released, any time there's a new winged backpack skin, and so on.

There are a couple of basic strategies to deal with this. In brief, they are:

• Check a few times a day (when you logon, just before you logoff, and whenever you're waiting for friends to return from being AFK, again, so you can finish the dungeon/raid etc)
• Convert the same amount regularly, e.g. 50g/week or 200g/month.
• Convert the same fraction regularly, e.g. 10% of your wallet's gold/month or 1%/week.

The first method is best suited for people who can check (in game or website) often. Today, it takes over 140 gold to get 400 gems, but just a few months ago, I converted at 101g/400, a 40% savings.

The second method is best for people with high gold income, but short attention spans. You can still take advantage of bargain rates, but it means you'll always have plenty of gems and most of them won't cost as much as the day you want the latest shinies that were added to the gem shop.

The third method is best for people who have low gold income and don't want to be caught short when a shiny or sale shows up. It has the same advantages of the second, without committing as many resources.

After Christmas, I've managed to catch rates as low as ~90 gold for 400 gems a few times, but usually anything under ~100g for 400 is really good.