One of the things I have learned on Flyertalk that has benefited me the most in real cash is hunting for a bank with no ATM fees and credit card with no Forex (foreign exchange) fees. At the time the best card was the Charles Schwab 2% cash back, no forex visa signature administered by FIA (note, rumors state this offer no longer exists), but FIA wasn’t showing me love so I had to settle for a Charles Schwab visa debit card on the High Yield Investor Checking account (free). This card also has no forex fees and they reimburse ATM fees (at the end of the month) charged by other banks.

Today I was booking tickets for a conference in Australia. The tickets cost AUD535.30. The conference uses PayPal to as their payment processor. PayPal wanted me to post the payment in USD and said it would be $501.xx. A quick check over on http://www.oanda.com showed me that the current interbank was closer to US$489.60. PayPal did also have the option to run the charge in local currency which they warn will mean that your credit card will add the forex fee. I did this and Chuck debited $491.39. THIS IS ALWAYS THE OPTION YOU SHOULD TAKE UNLESS YOU ARE FUNDING FROM CASH! Why? Well because many credit cards are savvy to this method and add forex fees to transactions processed from foreign countries regardless of the currency of the transaction! This means that PayPal gets their cut of around 3%, then your credit card gets their cut which can range from 0% (capital one) to I think close to 4% for some cards. I think many of them are around 3%, but always check this wiki. The kicker is that Citi doesn’t add these fees until the end of the cycle which always drove me crazy when I used those cards and needed to prove how much I was charged for business expense reimbursement.

Just that 1 purchase saved me $10. Plus my ATM fees are reimbursed, plus the account gets 0.75%APR.

If you do any international travel it is worthwhile to investigate how to minimize forex fees.

My week of Thanksgiving travel actually wasn’t too bad.

Flew out on Monday and the airport was fairly empty. I’ve flown out on Monday mornings for the past few weeks and had to queue about 15 minutes for security, but this week I had 3 people in front of me. On Tuesday I was booked on an 8 pm flight, but I was able to standby and get confirmed on a 3:30 pm flight.

Business as usual

This thread over at Flyertalk got me thinking about where I want to go and have I been there. As a kid I’d watch Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego on PBS. I never had the opportunity to go on the show, but just in case I ever did I determined Montana would be the state I chose. I don’t really know why, it just seemed like a good place to go. Now that I have more frequent flyer miles than many people accumulate in their life I have still never been to Montana. I have been to at least 40 states, but never Montana. I just need to bite the bullet and make a trip there to see all the national parks and drive the vast stretches of interstate.

Another goal of mine has been to visit all the Disney parks. I guess being born near a Disney park and having a Disney obsessed family probably shaped some of that goal. I have been to the most Disney parks in my family. I have been to Disney World (Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, MGM Studios), Disneyland Paris, Disneyland (main park and California Adventure), so that just leaves Tokyo Disneyland, Hong Kong Disneyland, and eventually the Shanghai Disneyland. I also need to go back to Disney World and visit Animal Kingdom. It was open last time I went to DW, but the group I went with didn’t want to waste time at a brand new park .

I’ve always been an avid fan of the Olympics. I’m one of those people who gets overly obsessed and patriotic seeing those 5 rings. I’d love to attend the games at one point in my life, but as a whole I really hate crowds and I’d probably be very uncomfortable attending. It would still be awesome. My Brazilian visa expires before the games there so I’d have to renew it to attend those, but in the grand scheme of attending the Olympics paying for a new visa is chump change.

People wonder why I try to avoid going back to a place I’ve already been, but it’s because there are a many places I’ve never been to and it would be a shame to not see as many places as I can while I am still able.

Of places I’ve wanted to visit and actually have: I can’t really remember making a list of places to go. I think Australia was probably on any list and I’ve been there. I may have added London after my parents went, so mark that off too. Paris seems to be a place many romanticize. Another check.

Thanksgiving week is the week where people who only travel once a year turn up in droves at an airport near you. Most of us business travelers don’t have to travel for business due to the shortened week, but some do. I, unfortunately, fall into that second category.

Thanksgiving can be a good time for collecting bump vouchers, but since I have to go straight from the airplane to work I’d prefer not to take my chances.

I figured it had to happen to me at one point. They were about to begin boarding my red eye last night and I was looking for my boarding pass in all my pockets but it was no where to be found. I just went up to the podium and gave the gate agent my ID and voila! a new boarding pass. Crisis averted.

Press release here. US Airways has had ads on tray tables for quite a while, but I almost never see them because I don’t always put down my tray table. Now Airtran is placing ads on seat backs.

If this means lower ticket prices I can’t really argue with this.

Announced today that upgrades will be reciprocal. This is good news as a whole, but has little impact on me. First off United has smaller First cabins so upgrades will be difficult, second, it’s only recent that CO has mainline service to CLT and they don’t have mainline service most of the time I fly them so I will probably never get upgraded on CO. I’m not sure how CO elites will affect my ability to upgrade on UA.

I know to most of you out there won’t understand the significance of this. You may be thinking “Just show your ID and get it over with.” Since TSA came into existence after 9/11 we have been frogs in boiling water. I didn’t travel more than once a year pre-9/11, but just in the almost 4 years I’ve been a weekly traveler the changes are extensive with no real benefit. They’ve just been charging us $2.50/flight for the privilege of being harassed.

• It started with mainly requiring a ticket to enter the secured area. This was OK because that weeded out the families welcoming home people and blocking your ability to deplane. It also got rid of *some* of the pickpockets and other scammers past security. Most of the people who posted on the Flyertalk thread recently seemed to agree with this move.
• After the shoe bomber we were all required to get shoes x-rayed. This has caused me to get athlete’s foot several times even though I always wear socks through the checkpoint. I just realized I have a case again!
• then in August 2006 (nb this was NOT September 2001!) the liquids plot resulted in a complete ban on in cabin liquids for a couple months followed by the current 3.4 fl oz (100 mL) container in a 1 qt/1L baggie. This limit is arbitrary and a joke. I think it’s just a plot to increase concession sales and travel sized items. I flew on that day and due to TSA wait times (over an hour in STL) and the lack of being able to bring a lot of things through security the few places to eat in STL’s A concourse were out of food/beverage.
• One of the newer things is the list of approved IDs and the loupes and blacklights. Before 9/11 ID checking was done at the gate to prevent people transferring nontransferable tickets. It had nothing to do with security and Australia does not check IDs for domestic flights nor to many other countries. They also seem to forget that the 9/11 hijackers all had valid IDs.
• The State Department began issuing passport cards which are a valid form of ID for anything except international air travel. Many TSA officers will not accept them because they haven’t studied the list of acceptable IDs.
• Last time I was at the DMV there were 4 other people waiting in line with me (3 of them over 65) who were needing to get a new state ID or license just because they were about to fly.
• There are virtual strip machines. Child pornography is illegal, but it’s perfectly legal for TSA to look at your child naked. No parent should ever let their child in one of the virtual strip search macines.
• Now there is this Secure Flight garbage requiring full name, date of birth, and gender. When does it end? Will I need a chip implanted in me to verify I can fly across my own country? So much for the right to travel freely.

So back to my buddy Phil. While the rest of us are frogs getting boiled he decided to jump out of the hot water and try to do something. Props to you and I wish I had the guts to do the same. I read his story right before I boarded my flight in LAS. Two TSA officers talked to the gate agent and then stood in the jet bridge during boarding. They didn’t have gloves so I knew they couldn’t be doing bag searches, but I feared they might be doing the random ID checks at the gate. I thought very hard about declining if this is what they were doing, but they just stood there for a reason I did not determine before boarding.

It seemed like a lot of the other blogs I visited had the same template I did so I’ll be playing around with the template a bit until I settle on one I like.

I love flipping through the pages of Sky Mall because it is a good time killer and I don’t shop much otherwise. Sky Mall is published seasonally and the Holiday editions came out last month. Here are some of my favorite “What were they thinking” items:

• The Telekinetic Obstacle Course. First off, this thing requires C sized batteries. I try to stick to things requiring AA and AAA. No C or D for me. I buy AA and AAA in bulk and always have some around. If this thing died on me I’d never replace the C batteries. I also don’t get why it can’t run off an outlet instead of batteries. They say it’s telekinetic, but your brain isn’t really moving the object, rather your brain activity controls the speed of fans. I felt duped after reading that. $99.95
• Instant Feng Shui benefits at home or away. Really? Something that looks like one of the Tiger Electronics toys I had back in the 80s will tell me how to arrange my furniture based on energies? I would constantly make fun of this rip-off to friends at the $399.99 price point. Apparently they heard and dropped it to $199.99. You can buy a shielded carrying case for another $39.99. I think I’ll just head to my local library and check out an Feng Shui book for free. Then if my energies don’t improve at least I didn’t waste over a day of income on this.
• Bilz Pinball Game. This allows you to give someone money in a pinball game and they have to play the game just right for it to dispense the money. Let’s just put it like this: you give me a present like this and you are no longer my friend. $12.99
• You can now buy a Taser in Sky Mall. Nevermind the fact that they are heavily regulated and require it to be activated after arrival. Really, I’m sure no one will crack that. $349.99
• Day Clock. I travel a lot and sometimes do get into a day warp, but a clock is mounted to a wall and not travel-friendly so it is of no help to me. If you are in a situation where you can mount this thing and actually see it and don’t know what day it is without it, you need to move out of your mother’s basement and get a job! $38.98 (!?!?!)
• SodaStream. There is so much soda already out there I have never thought I could do it better. $129.99
• Yukata Cover-up. It’s in the Delta version on page 180 but I can’t find it on the Sky Mall site. Pretty much if you thought $20.00 cover-ups from WalMart didn’t cost enough for you, you can spend $139.00 + $3 additional shipping for one from Sky Mall!
• Zona Plus . Take a squeeze grip thing from the gym, add some military endorsements, Viola! you can charge $379.
• Last but not least: The Personal Travel Bidet. Wow. It’s only $44.95 which doesn’t seem like a bad price, but I think I’ll stick with TP, thank you!

I am technically a US hub captive, but since I have been loyal to United since college they have always been my star alliance choice. I have put up with United and starnet blocking. I actually have fairly good redemption success including 2 coach tickets to SYD, 2 F tickets to SFO on US, and a few random bookings for friends.

I’m also a Delta lover because my family is from ATL and it’s blasphemy to not like Coke or Delta (but I pass on Home Depot and UPS). Delta implemented a tiered system last year right before I booked 2 tickets to DUB. I got 2 coach tickets for 90,000 miles each when a low ticket would have been 50,000 and a low BE ticket would have been 100,000. the only F tickets were more than I had in my bank and the 2 coach tickets at 90k wiped me out.

Now US Airways is following Delta. Usually in the race to the bottom it’s the other way around. US implemented charging for all beverages in flight and no one followed. Now that Delta and US have tiered programs I wonder if any other airlines will follow suit. The image posted above does remind me of the DL calendar that never shows the same tier for the same day 2 refreshes in a row. It seems like DL and US have the same development team judging by other things they seem to do at the same time (e.g. adding partner mileage numbers) so it wouldn’t surprise me if US’s calendar is a joke also. Oh well. I’ll keep all my *A miles on United especially since they are adding elite upgrades.

I’ve been flying Airtran more than I’d like recently, but they actually have a fairly interesting program. I now have enough credits for a 1 way trip on FL, but I’m in no hurry to book anything on them if I don’t have to.