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Upgraded: Electric power at JFK Airport
More power, Scotty! Through an agreement with the Port Authority, Samsung will be installing electrical charging stations in each terminal of New York’s JFK Airport. Each of the 50 8.5-foot poles will have four separate outlets, suitable for charging your laptop or cellphone. (via NewYorkology)

Downgraded: Hilton Suites Phoenix
Opera soprano Alison Trainer is suing Hilton Hotels for subjecting her to a week of bedbugs at the Hilton Suites in Phoenix. “She looks like a piece of wood that has been attacked by termites,” said Trainer’s attorney, Kenneth J. Glassman. But why would she stay in the hotel — or even in the room — for a full week once she started noticing she had multiple bites in the morning?

Ms. Trainer’s roommate at the Hilton Suites Phoenix

Downgraded: Loyalty card kickbacks
Ron Lieber of the Wall Street Journal runs the numbers for his 2006 spending and loyalty point earnings. He values his rewards at $4,850. And that’s DOWN 78% from his previous year’s earnings? Yowza, nice work! But the takeaway: In the past year, it’s gotten harder to get a solid “return” on your credit cards, with banks less and less likely to give 5% rebates on everyday purchases.

Upgraded, I guess: Palmdale, California
Palmdale, 70 miles from Los Angeles, it has added “LA” to its airport name. I always think this renaming of airports to employ the big city’s name amounts to deceptive practice. (”Chicago Rockford International Airport”? Sorry, folks, Rockford isn’t Chicago. It’s 90 miles away.) But the plan seems to have worked, if the goal was to attract airline service and/or reduce load on LAX. (See here for a skeptical account of Palmdale’s chances.) Delta and United are both hoping to start service to the airport.

Upgraded: Avis rental cars; Downgraded: Private time
Avis is working with Autonet Mobile to create in-car mobile wireless hotspots. For $10.95 a day, a unit in the car creates a local hotspot for use with regular wi-fi cards. The signal, in turn, is transmitted along a cellular network to hit the big pipes on the internet. It’s a nice service, if you’re going to be using your laptop from your car. But jeez, do we really need to be THAT accessible?

Downgraded: Snowglobes
Sure, liquids are prohibited. But don’t forget, that includes snowglobes. Sigh.

Downgraded: Flour, sugar, eggs, Philadelphia
Hot tip: If you really need to transport flour through airports, don’t carry it in a condom. But if you DO arrest someone for carrying flour through an airport in condoms, don’t keep her in jail for three weeks, like Philadelphia did. The flour “mule” will sue. And you’ll pay her handsomely. (Thanks to Benet Wilson)

Upgraded: This blog?
Voting for the Bloggies is open. Vote early and often for your favorite blogs, as long as you vote by January 10. Shameless self-promotion aside: May the best blogs win!

Remember the difficulties which blog readers (and I) shared regarding the use of American credit cards overseas, when the only way to complete a transaction was using “chip-and-PIN” technology?

The argument for the chip-and-PIN technology has always been enhanced security. Signatures were too easily faked (or ignored), the argument goes, and protection of having an embedded chip containing the card data, plus a numeric PIN, overrode the inconvenience caused to those (often international) customers whose cards didn’t have the requisite chip.

Chip-and-PIN terminals were supposedly tamper-proof, and the multiple-layers of security allegedly decreased risk to both the customer and the retailer.

Until now.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge have hacked a chip-and-PIN box, and in a demonstration of the machine’s weakness, reprogrammed it to play Tetris. A less jesterlike hacker might hack a box and use the terminal to capture card numbers and PINs. So much for a better mousetrap. See here. Be sure to scroll down to watch the video.

Think this new evidence will cause European credit card issuers to make it easier to use a non-chip card when making purchases? Don’t bank on it.

Related:
- Update: How to beat the chip and PIN credit card requirement?
- Rotten in Denmark: Credit cards with mandatory PIN
- “We prefer Visa cards” — just not yours

(via boingboing)

Cheryl in Victoria, BC writes:

Which is a more advantageous way to collect frequent flyer miles: with a credit card that credits points to a specific one of the three top air alliances or with a credit card that uses a travel agent to book flights on any airline? I live in British Columbia and usually fly to
the USA.

First off, kudos for thinking in terms ofalliances, and not just airlines. Many people forget that you can cash in your miles on airline partners. But to your real question:

You ask about the tradeoffs between two kinds of miles-earning credit cards. In reality, there are three kinds of miles-earning credit cards out there which earn three different kinds of points: Single-airline points, transferable points, and proprietary points. Let’s run through the pros and cons of each.

1. Cards with Single-Airline Points
This is the “traditional” miles-earning card, issued by a bank with an airline partner. In general, one dollar charged to such a card earns one mile deposited into your frequent flyer account with that airline. So if you have a Citibank AAdvantage card, your purchases earn miles in the American Airlines AAdvantage program. Every month, the bank transfers the miles over, and those miles fall under the rules of the airline.

This has a few advantages, but also disadvantages. Assuming you have an existing relationship with the airline, your credit card will be one of several earning sources. Combine your spending with flights, hotels, car rentals, and the thousands of other ways to earn miles, and the miles can really add up. The cards often offer sign-up bonuses that can boost your balance to the point you’re nearly at a free ticket. If you are looking to build up your existing airline-linked frequent flyer account, and you charge a lot on your credit card, this kind of card is probably your best bet.

At the same time, though, you’re trapped by the rules of the program you’re collecting those miles with. It’s not always easy to get free tickets to the places you want, when you want, since seats are limited. Planning ahead is necessary. (See here for some tips.)

Plus, airline cards generally come with a fee. If you don’t charge heavily, you shouldn’t bother In fact, if you don’t charge a lot every month, you’re probably better off with a cash-back card (Fidelity Investments offers a good one that refunds 1.5% of purchases.)

2. Cards with Transferable Points
Other cards collect points in an account that’s not attached to airlines, but that you can convert into “regular” airline miles. American Express Membership Rewards and Diners Club are the most famous examples, though the cards linked to some hotel programs like Starwood (link below) are definitely worthy of your consideration.

The way it works: You collect points, and you transfer the points into one of several possible airlines, hotels, or other affinity programs.

The benefit is that you have some flexibility as to where you put your miles. If you manage multiple frequent flyer accounts, perhaps in separate alliances, this might be your best option. Need 5000 miles in British Airways AND in United? Top them both up with a transfer. There are sometimes “bonuses” here too.

The downside: Point conversion rates aren’t always 1:1, and you can only transfer miles at certain thresholds, e.g., 5000 points at a time. Not all airlines participate, or participate at the same conversion rate. An annual fee is typical.

Bottom line: These programs are a great compromise, offering you a range of options.

3. Cards with Proprietary Points
In the United States, you’ve probably seen David Spade hawking CapitalOne’s “No Hassle” reward cards. That’s one of several such cards, but the principle is generally the same: Your purchases accrue points, issued by the card-issuing bank. The points aren’t transferable, and they’re not linked to an airline. You can’t use them to upgrade your flight, or to top up an account that’s just short of a free ticket. Your points are tied to the bank.

What’s appealing about this last option is that customers have a choice in how they redeem their points, within the bank’s rules. You effectively convert your points to cash and buy a ticket with the airline you want, using those points — as long as you use the bank’s in-house travel agent. Another benefit is that those tickets actually earn conventional frequent flyer miles in the airline’s program, once you actually fly with the ticket.

However, in most cases, these cards are a bad deal, and you should stay away. The reason: The value of your miles is based on the cash value of the ticket, and thus is always capped. Take the CapitalOne program’s rules, for example:

The number of miles required by the Cardholder for travel redemption will depend on the cost of the itinerary chosen by the Cardholder at the time of redemption. The mileage requirement is as follows: 15,000 miles are required for tickets up to $150; 35,000 miles are required for tickets from $150.01 up to $350; 60,000 miles are required for tickets from $350.01 up to $600. For tickets over $600 in value, the required number of miles will be determined by multiplying the cost of the ticket times 100 (ex. $768 ticket requires 76,800 miles).

So the maximum value of your points is 1 cent each. While this is marginally acceptable, you can get more value if you took real cash rebates, or if you had received traditional frequent flyer miles. (A first or business class ticket from North America to Australia, using traditional miles, could get you 10 cents/mile, easily.)

So: What kind of card is the best?
If you want miles, but you want those miles to be worth more than one cent each, you should stick to a card that like #1 or #2. Since I’ve been lucky (or skilled?) at getting a lot more bang for the buck mile, I stick with cards that give me real frequent flyer miles. But it’s a little bit of a gamble. If you prefer the flexibility of booking with any airline, skip the “reward points” game entirely, and demand the cold comfort of a cash refund.

Related:
- The value of frequent flyer miles
- Reader mail: Can I use credit card miles to upgrade a ticket?
- Miles or Buy: Pay Cash or Cash in Miles (frequent flyer mile tutorial)
- Starwood Preferred Guest American Express Card (affiliate)

Seven Joliet, Illinois hotels were hit with search warrants as part of the ever-so-subtly-named “Operation Sleep Over.” The sting yielded 10 arrests of hotel employees and managers. The hotels included a Holiday Inn Express and two Super 8 locations. (The fact that Joliet is perhaps most famous for its prison, as featured in The Blues Brothers, is somehow fitting…)

Hotel workers apparently systematically stole credit numbers and personal information from guests at their properties. They then turned around and sold the data wholesale to identity thieves. Over 10,000 credit card numbers and associated information changed hands, though they were typically sold in lots of 10, at rates between $1,000 and $5,000.

If you were the victim of this operation, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll be contacted by anyone regarding the matter. So you might want to get a copy of your credit report if you stayed in the area in the last six years. In fact, you should just get a copy of your credit report, period. It’s just a good idea to get one, and it’s free, with no catch. I get one every year, and this last time was the very first time in 10 years that there was NOT an error. Errors aren’t always fraudulent in nature, but still, you want to make sure the record is clean.

As for preventing future incidents like this from happening, there’s not much you can do at the local level, unless you’re willing to cut up your credit cards and go all-cash. Until Congress makes it tougher for someone (including you yourself) to obtain “instant” credit without verifying your identity, we’ll continue to hear stories like this.

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When John Brownlee, expatriate American and co-captain of the Consumerist.com ship, isn’t discussing how my building’s current lack of hot water affects my privates, he’s offering helpful advice and a platform for people who’ve been wronged by lousy customer service.

Via e-mail, he suggests this potential workaround to chip-and-PIN requirements for non-European credit card holders. He verifies that this trick works in Ireland:

I don’t know if this will work in Denmark, but what I used to do (when I lost my pin) was plug it in and just wait. After about twenty seconds of you not doing anything, a receipt is automatically printed out.

Obviously this won’t work at self-service gas stations or train ticket vending machines, but it’s worth a shot if you encounter a clerk who’s unwilling/unable/untrained to print out a swipe-and-sign receipt.

Whether you want to stand there and wait 20 seconds, doing nothing, when people are waiting behind you is a another matter.

Related:
- Rotten in Denmark: Credit cards with mandatory PIN
- We prefer Visa cards, just not yours

(image: PanDeva)

Reader Mike writes in:

I thought I’d share something I encountered on a recent vacation to Denmark. When I tried to use any of my credit or debit cards at stores, I was asked to enter a PIN code. It turns out that in Denmark, they instituted a PIN code to replace signatures, and this is different from an ATM PIN code you would have for a debit or credit card. Some stores were able to bypass the PIN and then print a receipt for a signature - hotels and some restaurants did this - but most other stores - supermarkets, mobile phone stores, gas stations - did not. I had a mobile phone store even call American Express, and eventually told me they could not process a purchase without a PIN code. As a result, we simply used the ATMs to withdraw and pay with cash.

We’ve mentioned this phenomenon before in an earlier post about the frustrations of not having a “ChipKnip” feature when traveling the Netherlands with U.S.-issued credit cards. But the chip-and-PIN requirement wasn’t nearly as widespread in Holland. We got off comparatively easy. It sounds much closer to mandatory in Denmark.

The whole point of a global credit card network like Visa or MasterCard is that you can use your card globally. If you have extra local requirements that take precedence, then Danish Visa cards might as well drop the Visa name. (Heck, call them Carlsberg cards.)

Of course, Danes can bring their cards to the U.S. to swipe and sign, so they enjoy the advantages of a global card network. But shouldn’t the major credit card networks clamp down on this kind of local variation?

Which countries are the biggest offenders? The issue seems isolated to Europe thus far. We count the UK and the Netherlands as moderately problematic. Germany and France are no problem at all. And Denmark is trouble with a capital T.

Where else? Comments are open, e-mail tips encouraged.

Related:
- We prefer Visa cards, just not yours

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Chase is offering an astronomical 25,000 bonus miles when you sign up for their United Airlines Mileage Plus Signature Visa and spend $250 on the card. There’s no annual fee in the first year. After a year they charge $60.

25,000 miles gets you a free domestic ticket.

The fine print says the offer is for new customers only, but it’s possible the bank might waive that requirement. (The link is handled by FirstUSA, which is a subsidiary of Chase, FYI.)

Via Gary Leff.

Reader Vicky S. of Stockton, California writes in:

I’m flying to New York in September on United, and I’m wondering if there is any way for me to use my Capital One miles to upgrade. I have over 20000 miles with the card.

Vicky, I’m afraid you’re out of luck. You would need United Mileage Plus miles or upgrade certificates to upgrade the flight. Too bad, too, because upgrading on the cross-country flights to JFK, in United’s three-class planes, is worth it.

You can use those CapitalOne miles to buy a ticket, but you can’t use them for upgrades on any airline. That’s one of the tradeoffs that comes with credit card miles that aren’t linked to a specific carrier.

As a general rule, I’m opposed to bank-issued miles, like CapitalOne’s “No Hassle Rewards,” as opposed to airline-issued miles. Sure, you get to cash the bank’s miles in for any airline’s ticket, but that really just means you’re getting cash back. Why not get a card that actually pays you in real cash, then?

Besides, the value of those bank-miles isn’t that great. CapitalOne sets cutoffs for redemption of their miles:

15,000 miles are required for tickets up to $150; 35,000 miles are required for tickets from $150.01 up to $350; 60,000 miles are required for tickets from $350.01 up to $600. For tickets over $600 in value, the required number of miles will be determined by multiplying the cost of the ticket times 100 (ex. $768 ticket requires 76,800 miles).

That means you’re getting 1 cent per mile MAXIMUM, with ZERO chance of leveraging those miles for an upgrade (like you just discovered) or a premium-cabin ticket. A business class ticket to Australia could easily run you $8000 — which would require 90,000 United Mileage Plus miles (though that’s going up to 110,000 miles in October) or a whopping 800,000 CapitalOne miles.

So for now, check your United account to see if you have enough miles for the upgrade. It’ll most likely cost you 15,000 United miles each way.

tags: travel | CapitalOne | frequent flyer miles | credit cards

James Gilden offers a primer for confused Americans who encounter “chip and PIN” credit card transactions when visiting Europe. Since credit cards not issued locally aren’t able to perform these PIN-based transactions, international travelers are commonly forced to fight for their right to the old-fashioned swipe-and-sign. It’s a must-read for travelers to Europe.

But paying with your non-local credit card is not always as easy as asking the waiter for an old-school swipe of the plastic. I faced this myself, and much less happily than James Gilden, when I was in the Netherlands earlier this year.

In Holland, there are a number of locations where it is ONLY possible to make purchases using chip-and-PIN, but *not* with regular credit cards, even when the list of accepted payment forms includes all the flavors of credit you know and love. Two examples come to mind: Train ticket vending machines accept coins or “Chipknip,” the local flavor of chip-and-PIN in Holland. The Dutch transfer money from one of their accounts onto their card’s chip at “Chipknip” stations, making the cards prepaid debit cards.

With a US-issued credit card, with or without a chip, I couldn’t simply swipe it and go. I even had a US-issued Amex card with chip and a PIN for ATM withdrawals, but that didn’t work either. The only solution was to get in line to buy the tickets — and pay a teller-surcharge to boot.

Far more frustrating was the phenomenon of the fully-automated self-service gas station. While I’m a big fan of pay-at-the-pump in the U.S. and Canada, my cards were useless in the Dutch countryside. Our rental car was getting low, so we pulled into a station, only to be denied access to the pumps with each and every card in our wallets. And,with no attendant, and no option for cash payment, we had to trek onward on fumes, looking for a station that accepted cash or “old-fashioned” credit.

It’s not clear if, say, British chip-and-PIN cards would have worked. All I know is that it was a pain in the butt. I understand the benefits of the PIN — increased security over regular credit card transactions. But making a local proprietary payment system that overrides the global Visa/Mastercard/Amex network is a blow to travelers’ convenience.

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tags: travel | credit cards | chip and PIN | Chipknip

Drive too little? That’s a fee. Live in the Bronx? Enjoy your surcharge. Bring the car back undamaged? More and more, that may be a fee too.

Car renters beware: You may be charged for vehicle damage that you didn’t cause, or that doesn’t exist. It may not be a matter of official policy, but it’s your word against theirs.

Laurie Berger reports that more and more travelers are finding repair charges on their credit card bills — often weeks or months after they’ve returned the car. The article focuses on rentals in Europe, though I’m sure the problem isn’t confined to there.

Particularly galling is the accusation that some rental agencies offer bonuses to their employees who charge customers for vehicle damage. (The accused, National/Alamo parent company Vanguard Car Rental, denies that such bonuses exist.)

Most of Berger’s advice is sound, though the takeaway is overly alarmist: “Rent at your own risk.” Come on. Are we supposed to cower in fear of the almighty power of Hertz? How about some more practical suggestions?

To avoid charges, customers should SLOWLY inspect the car before returning it, should have a rental representative sign off on the car’s condition upon return, and should bring a camera and — wow — a magnifying lens with them to document matters. A magnifying lens!?! (You don’t pack light, do you, Laurie?…)

One big omission, and perhaps the easiest solution of all: The article skips any reference to the insurance coverage benefit that many credit cards provide. For example, when renting abroad, most gold, platinum, or Signature Visa cards will provide primary collision and loss coverage, so if the rental agency says you scratched a bumper, it’s the credit card’s problem, not yours. If your card doesn’t have such a benefit, call your credit card issuer (or the competition) and get a card that does.

The credit card coverage offers enormous peace of mind. That doesn’t mean you should drive like a maniac (then again, you ARE covered…). You should still be diligent about checking the car for scratches and dents, before and after the rental. Even if the credit card issuer is on the hook for the bill, you’d still have the hassle of dealing with the charge to your account, the phone calls to customer service, etc. And besides, if it really IS a fraudulent charge on your card, then the rental company shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it.

(heather)
tags: travel | car rental | credit cards | insurance

Some good tips in the NYT this weekend for people traveling internationally, and looking to avoid onerous currency exchange fees while maintaining convenience. The short version:

1) Take out money from your home checking account from an ATM at your destination, instead of at an exchange counter. The 1% conversion fee that Visa/MasterCard add to the transaction is comparatively cheap. Avoid credit card cash advances.

2) Try to get a credit card that doesn’t add extra percentages to the Visa/MasterCard standard 1% conversion fee. I have an account with my longtime credit union (highly recommended, if you’re eligible to join), which adds no additional charges. Shop around.

3) Read up about your destination to see what will work best — some combination of credit cards, travelers checks, and cash. Bring small bills. Consider wearing a money belt.

On this last point, two small tales:

Over the weekend, I started some very preliminary research into a possible future vacation to the Patagonia region of Argentina and Chile. One hotel on the Argentinian side, and by no means a hovel, indicated that they only accepted cash, bank checks, or personal checks (!?). No credit cards. Given its location in a touristy area, I was surprised that a hotel of decent caliber would not accept cards, but this reinforces the axiom that you need to check ahead.

Second, there are rare moments when foreign currency is worth more than the exchange rate. This past December, on a trip to St. Martin in the Caribbean, I witnessed restaurants in the beach town of Grand Case that accepted both US dollars and euros — at a 1:1 ratio. With the euro worth approximately $1.25, these restaurants were giving a 20% discount to those paying in American cash. Why??

Apparently, the strength of the euro was deterring American visitors from spending their money on the French side of the island, so the discount was an incentive to attract American tourists. Discounts were for cash only; credit cards would be charged in euros. There were no similar discounts on the St. Maarten side, where the Netherlands Antillean Dollar is the official currency. Needless to say, we had some excellent meals on the French side, at great discounts.

Bottom line: read up on your destination before your trip to see what kind of cash to bring.

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Keith Alexander offers this fantastic example of the potential frequent flyer mileage you can earn with a credit card:

Ann Scharpf of Huntingtown, Md., scouted around for about 40 friends, neighbors and co-workers who were willing to help her pump her American Airlines Citibank card. She would use her card to cover their groceries and other necessities if they would reimburse her.
Within two months, Scharpf was paying co-workers’ car insurance. And on Saturday mornings, she would buy grocery-store gift cards on her credit card totaling $100 to $800, then hand them over and collect the money from her friends and co-workers. Next, she would deposit the cash and pay off the balance on her card. Once, a Citibank representative called her to inquire why in one day she had bought $1,500 at a Food Lion and then $3,500 at the Giant Food across the street.

Ann Scharpf, I salute you! You just entered the frequent flyer hall of fame in my book. Paying co-workers’ car insurance?!? Hard-freakin’-core. And I thought I was doing well by charging all of my OWN expenses to the card…

At the same time, Alexander cites oft-heard complaints that finding awards you want is hard, and that the “annual credit card fees of $60 to $85, depending on the airline and the credit card, also make the cards less attractive.”

I agree that, if you pay an annual fee for a credit card, you’d better be getting your money’s worth. And you’d better not carry a balance, because the airline-linked cards carry high rates.

Let’s assign an overly conservative value of 1 cent per mile to the miles you earn. If you’re paying a $50 annual fee for your credit card, you’re not breaking even until you’ve earned 5000 miles with your card. If you’re paying $85, the break-even threshold is 8500 miles, etc.

But AFTER you cross that point, I contend the cards are still worth it. (And my 1 cent/mile standard is too tough.) True, hoarding miles is stupid, since miles don’t earn interest and are a devaluing currency, but their value isn’t fixed, either: You can get 1 cent per mile if you cash in your points for a ticket you could buy with cash during a fare sale, or you could get 8 or even 10 cents per mile when you redeem an international premium-class award. (Unsure if it’s better to spend money or miles? Run through the Miles or Buy tutorial.)

Plus, the bonuses you can earn with mileage credit cards are sometimes nutty, and annual-fee waiver offers come around, too. At the low end of bonuses, there’s the Northwest WorldPerks Visa Signature: One current offer gives you 7500 bonus miles with a $90 annual fee, or 5000 bonus miles with a $55 fee, which frankly isn’t great. At the upper end, there’s a United Mileage Plus Visa Signature with the first year’s fee waived and 20,000 bonus miles. And that’s before you spend anything on the card! Even the low-bonus card might be worth it if it earns you sufficient miles through your usage.

Plus, cards are constantly offering bonuses, such as “spend $300 on groceries this month and get double miles,” bonus miles for buying from specific merchants, or annual “anniversary” bonuses. If you tally it up at the end of the year, and you’re not earning more than 1 mile per dollar charged to the card, it may be time for a new card.

Also, some airlines and banks have agreements to offer annual fee rebates to top tier elites. Even better!

Ditch my mileage card? No way. Now if only I could find some trustworthy suckers who will let me charge their car insurance and reimburse me…

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tags: travel | frequent flyer miles | credit cards