Where to Eat Flow Chart

Where to Eat flow chart

Chuck Strikes Again!

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.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

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

Where do I want to go and have I been there?

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.

Most fun travel week of the year

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.

Where did it go?

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.

Airtran to begin seat back advertising

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.