Bogleheads.org

The problem may lie in the company if it is a foreign based company. For example, if the company is based in Spain, it may only accept credit cards issued in Spain (or even just certain credit cards by certain banks within the country) despite it still being a Mastercard or Visa. Happens to me a lot when I'm overseas. The company lacks the ability to do foreign exchange or something else. Iberia is a global airline flying from and to many countries (and a major part of IAG, which also owns British Airways). They have an English-language website for a reason -- they are more than willing to sell tickets to customers in the US and other countries. It would make no sense for them to only accept credit cards issued in Spain. But apparently AmE...

I have been an Amex customer for nearly 30 years. I have needed to contact customer service maybe 2-3 times for non-routine issues, and the experience has been terrible. Don’t know if Amex deserves the good reputation it has, but my limited data points don’t support it. I have had even fewer non-routine customer service interactions with Chase, Citi, or BofA. No issues, but again, very limited data points. Not sure that anecdotal “evidence” is terribly helpful in choosing a better bank. Routine interactions: opening, closing accounts, asking for credit limit changes or reallocations, disputing a charge, asking for retention offers. Non-routine interactions: (1) requested correction of bonus points and resort credit for Hilton stay charged t...

Beefriendly wrote: ↑Wed Mar 15, 2023 11:45 pm In retirement. Travel rewards are too restrictive for us. Want to go where we want to go, not be lead by the "deal" leash

Interesting. Early retirement has given us a lot more flexibility in using travel rewards.

None of the things you listed were changes to the terms of the contract--just info changes. “Info” is incredibly vague. I am not a lawyer, but most contracts I have ever seen are a template with value (info) filled in. Change the values, and you change the contract. Accepting a fee for the fuel purchase option seems very much like a change of the contract if adding or removing a second driver is a change of the contract. And again, in many cases I didn’t even have a contract because no car had been selected until I showed up at the gate with it. Basically, I find it hard to believe that anyone here knows what the agents at the gate are allowed to do or not do, for all the different rental agencies (and locations, some of which may be corpo...

Really? I find this hard to believe. And anybody who has rented a car before would know that the attendant at the gate is not going to change the contract and reverse charges. How would anyone who has rented a car know what the policies of every car rental company are? And Thrifty renters who stand an hour and a half in line are probably not frequent renters with a ton of experience anyway. And for what it’s worth, I have successfully made changes to the contract at the gate countless times. For Hertz specifically I have changed the credit card to be used (because it had defaulted to a corporate one from my profile), I have had them update the fuel level reported on my original contract, and I even have had them update my drivers license (...

Kookaburra wrote: ↑Tue Mar 07, 2023 9:25 pm For all the suggestions to write the CEO, how does one actually get the message or letter into the hands of a CEO at a major company?

You generally don’t, unless you stalk them and hand it to them on the way into their home. But many companies’ CEOs have an executive assistant team that deals with emails or letters sent to the CEO. And they are often more empowered or, uh, capable of comprehending customer concerns than frontline (outsourced?) customer “service” reps.

Elliott.org has contact info for many travel and other companies.

NotWhoYouThink wrote: ↑Tue Mar 07, 2023 8:22 pm Another one where you'll need a car, but we enjoyed touring Olympic National Park. The kids laughing about the banana slugs is one of my favorite memories.

Get them some UCSC t-shirts: https://www.ucsc.edu/about/mascot.html

I would buy a gasoline powered car or plug in hybrid in 2034. Within 6-8 years after the mandate, hopefully the electric charging issues should be resolved or the “electric only” car sales mandate may be lifted due to complaints by people that live in cities/apartments/condos where charging facilities may not be sufficient to keep all the electric vehicles running. I think the charging situation will be “solved” much sooner than you think (2040?). I see so many new chargers - L3 and L2 - pop up all over the place. And that’s without a single charger funded by NEVI. I think more and more apartment complexes will start putting chargers in. Public garages will get them. Workplace charging will become more common (my former employer put charge...

8foot7 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 07, 2023 5:57 pm
You’re insinuating it would be unethical behavior to not pay a junk fee the OP didn’t ask for that the rep said would be removed? Interesting take.

Indeed, it would have been better if the OP hadn’t signed the contract as is, and I am sure it won’t happen again. But that doesn’t justify the employee providing incorrect information (perhaps intentionally, perhaps because of poor training) that the contract would be corrected. If it’s not ethical for the OP to follow through with the signed commitment, what would we call the behavior of the employee? Scam? Fraud?

Valuethinker wrote: ↑Tue Mar 07, 2023 4:13 pm
Oddly that is one of the things which is considered! That's one of the standard tests -- Football Association Cup Final etc. At the Half Time Break, there is a power surge as everyone puts the kettle on (in the olden days, 2kw kettles but I imagine now the majority are 3kw).

Reading in the article it's more about the availability of generation. At that time almost all of Britain's electricity was "despatchable" ie could be firmly drawn on by the National Grid control room.

When I came across a story about this phenomenon (I think there are similar stories about flushing toilets during the super bowl), I was just surprised that it was tea that people in the UK desired, not a beer from the fridge.

Don't you mean Victoria, British Columbia? Gill No, I did mean Vancouver, but it wouldn’t shock me to hear that Victoria has similar regulations. I just happened to recall what Vancouver is doing from some podcast I listed to a long time ago. Quick Google search found this: https://sustain.ubc.ca/sites/default/files/2017-31_Electric%20Vehicle%20Building%20Code%20Requirements%20Survey_Bhat.pdf The City of Vancouver was the first jurisdiction in North America to require electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure in new homes. In July 2009, the City of Vancouver passed a requirement that the parking garages in one- and two-family dwellings, and each one of 20% of the parking stalls in multifamily buildings be equipped with an EV charging c...

If we all plugged our electric kettles in at the same moment, we could well blow the building fuse (probably an exaggeration, but please don't try the experiment! :wink: ). Or the national grid. https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-soccer-world-england-electricity/england-brews-up-sufficient-power-for-world-cup-tea-time-surge-idUKKBN0E92G220140529 It's probably worth noting that in Alberta, Canada, which must be one of the coldest (on average) inhabited jurisdictions in the world (about 5m people, 255k square miles so smaller than Alaska and Texas among American states, but larger than California), plugs for engine block heaters are ubiquitous in any public parking facility. At least they were in Edmonton in the 1980s (popn 1m or so). That w...

Nate79 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 07, 2023 3:37 pm Sorry OP, you are wrong. The charge is correct and you owe it.

That may be, but apparently Thrifty staff themselves don’t understand their rules as you seem to understand them. One should be able to rely on the information they provide about fees for additional drivers. It’s their job. So a letter to the CEO might very well result in a positive outcome for the OP. Or not, in which case I would pay and then in the future avoid all Thifty/Dollar/Hertz rentals unless they were significantly cheaper than other options.

Talk (chat) to Amazon. Their customer service is generally pretty good if you don’t dispute too many things over time.

DoubleComma wrote: ↑Tue Mar 07, 2023 1:54 pm Its totally inconceivable they would install a charging station and allow users access for free.

In my town there are multiple new-ish apartment developments that have a small number of (at this time) free chargers. In the long term, they will have to expand that, and I suspect there will be some sort of billing system implemented (Chargepoint? Not exactly rocket science). I hope they considered the increased electrical load when building the car port structures and garages.

LilyFleur wrote: ↑Tue Mar 07, 2023 1:26 pm
It is much easier to install a large capacity electrical charger in a single-family-home garage. I'm not sure what would happen with apartments and condos with detached garages if only electrical vehicles were to be sold in this state.

I think British Victoria and Vancouver in particular has long had building codes/regulations requiring EV chargers in multi unit housing developments. If you research that, you will probably see how billing could work.

The problem with a Europe connection is that you have to clear emigration in the connecting airport. Lines can be long (CDG especially) and changing terminals there can also be time consuming. Have a backup flight home if you can. When you connect in the US, there are usually more backup options if you miss the connection. If we are talking about a flight to a Bilbao, there probably isn’t a choice since I don’t think there are any non-stops to/from the US. One other benefit of connecting in Europe: if you misconnect in Europe, you have already flown the long and often once-a-day leg and can more easily be rebooked on a more frequently operated later local flight. Or take the bus/train. Obviously, many people in the OP’s situation would hav...

GreendaleCC wrote: ↑Tue Mar 07, 2023 2:22 pm Complain to their CEO. Make his team clean up after their poor service.

Thrifty is a Hertz-owned brand, so Elliott.org lists Hertz contacts for Thrifty.

https://www.elliott.org/company-contacts/hertz/

When you complain, try to condense the story as much as possible.

jplee3 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 07, 2023 1:41 pm
Interesting! I'll have to look at that option for property taxes! What state are you in? And did it give you the option to select Paypal for billpay? Or did you go through Paypal's site? I'm in their "Bill Pay" section but it seems to be indicating that the provider needs to make Paypal available as an option... I'm in California btw

Probably county-specific, not just state. At least in my state and, AFAIR, in California the county collects property taxes.

niagara_guy wrote: ↑Mon Mar 06, 2023 7:20 am The short story is that my 15 year old child and I did 7 cities in 6 days many moons ago, it was a great trip, we lived out of backpacks. England, Belgium, France, Italy, Switzerland, used Eurail pass and several overnight trains. Not for everyone, worked for us.

If it’s Tuesday, we must be in Belgium

I have done similar trips in the past. And bounced around the east coast of the US many years ago in a similar style (mix of Greyhound and rental car). Was great fun, but I was a lot younger and poorer.

boglefreak wrote: ↑Sun Mar 05, 2023 4:48 pm
-DW, 2 teenage daughters and 1 teenage 10 year-old.

Perhaps an opportunity to utilize/practice a foreign language learned in school could help drive the location decision?

Bogle7 wrote: ↑Sun Mar 05, 2023 6:31 pm More days.
At least 7 more days.

Agreed.

I think in some parts of Europe it may actually be against the law to go on vacation for just a week

boglefreak wrote: ↑Sun Mar 05, 2023 4:48 pm -considering France, England, Portugal, Spain, Italy

Was planning on Rome, but would appreciate suggestions!

Many thanks in advance.

We had a great time in Rome and it’s on our to-do list to go back and expand to other parts of Italy. We have also had wonderful trips to Portugal and France.

For Spain (on our calendar for this year actually). There is a thread ongoing right now that discusses Spain:

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=399190

I have always paid. Driving the printout to the post office and paying for registered / return receipt mail isn’t worth the hassle. But it seems my state now has a free online self-filing system, so I might try that this year.

MBB_Boy wrote: ↑Thu Mar 02, 2023 8:38 am
They chose to go the co-brand route for their credit card instead of introducing their own (neutral choice), but got unlucky with Apple as a partner.

How did they get unlucky with Apple?

In certain situations 2h waits are common regardless of brand. I waited 2h at Hertz, Enterprise and others. What are the certain situations? No cars available, or a long line at the counter with not enough agents? The key benefit of signing up for whatever mediocre loyalty program the major rental agencies have is that I can skip the counter and go straight to an assigned car or pick one from a designated aisle. And while it certainly happens that locations are out of vehicles, in 30 years of renting vehicles that has happened exactly twice to me. One time before I was a “loyal member”, and one time in LAS when National was completely out. They then assigned me a vehicle from corporate sibling Alamo, so the wait was just a few minutes and ...

After 10 business days I still hadn't received the funds and called again. This time the rep I talked to didn't ask for any details about my claim and just said that the participation in the bonus offer was much heavier than expected and it was taking time to honor all the bonus payments. She said there was no expected timeline on when the funds would be deposited. She had no comment on my eligibility, she spoke as if there was no issue with my claim so I don't there is any issue there. My take was they just don't have the funds, I find it hard to believe it is just a processing issue. Surely their PDP-11 can handle the automated processing of bonuses in a timely fashion, and surely they have the funds to pay out the bonuses. I suspect tha...

Parkinglotracer wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 8:16 pm I was with a bud who did turo for our ski group. Snowed in park city, Van had bald all season tires and a vcr screen duct taped to ceiling to prevent it from hanging down. We pushed it across a snow packed intersection. Random sample of one experience. He needed to drop it off a day early and owner would not answer her phone. Not good.

I have never rented from Turo, but I wonder what the reviews of this vehicle and owner said. And what review your bud left after the rental.

Also, this card gives diamond status which gives you room upgrades if available. So I'm assuming I can book a regular room with points or cash and then get upgraded rather than pay the higher price. My only concern is not knowing until arrival if the suite upgrade will be happening. With our age group kids ( 8,3,1) it makes for a much more enjoyable trip. Usually I email ahead of time but just wondering how it works with the diamond status. I would not expect many suite upgrades. I have been a Diamond since the card came out, in early 2018. Don’t recall a single suite upgrade. Better room categories (nicer view, upgraded amenities) are not uncommon, but getting exactly what I booked is also not uncommon. Some competing programs have confir...

ZinCO wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 1:05 pm
Correct, just make sure you don't book an Advance Purchase rate. The requirement is ultimately the hotel itself has to bill your CC (i.e. when you check out), and not Hilton Corporate, which is what happens with a prepaid or Advance Purchase rate.

There are actually some rates that are effectively prepaid but cancelable and charged by the hotel itself. E.g., I have a reservation that is cancelable up to 72 hrs before arrival, but also includes this in the rate info:

“This reservation requires a credit card deposit of $xxx.xx USD which will be charged to your card.”

($xxx.xx is the exact room rate + taxes/fees, and it is refundable if canceled before the 72 hr deadline)

BashDash wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 11:17 am Hi!
I am considering getting the Hilton Aspire CC. I am a little confused on how the 250$ resort credit works? I have read some miles and points blogs but am confused if I can use this CC to book a night and the 250$ can act as a credit. Thanks!!

Yes, as long as you book a resort from this list:

https://www.hilton.com/en/resorts/

Note that there are other properties in the Hilton portfolio that have “resort” as part of their name and are not on the list. They don’t qualify.

toddthebod wrote: ↑Mon Feb 27, 2023 6:28 pm The most interesting part about this is that I don't believe I've ever used the card, or if I had, it was at a local bank many months ago, and it remains locked via the app. I'm curious if anyone else has experienced this with their Schwab card or others.

I had a similar experience several years ago with my Ally Debit card. Only ever used it at reputable (proper bank) ATMs. Still, some random in-person purchase in another town appeared on my statement. Ally replaced the card and removed the charge.

passive101 wrote: ↑Sun Feb 26, 2023 11:51 pm
I notice on the iPad when it runs low on memory it refreshes and loses things in the browsers. It happens with Brave, Chrome, and Safari. That makes me a little nervous to use for taxes since I’ll be switching apps and websites for forms and such.

It happens with all browsers because they are effectively the same browser (engine) with just different user interfaces. Apple doesn't allow true alternative browsers at this time on the iOS/iPadOS platforms.

In my experience, this happens when I have too many tabs open.

Farmerberg wrote: ↑Sat Feb 25, 2023 8:07 pm
Nope, not at all the reason. My wife is just tired of cattle class

Totally understandable. Avoiding cattle class as much as possible is a hobby and (since we are in a credit card thread) credit card rewards and deep(er) understanding of loyalty programs has allowed me to significantly improve our travel experiences.

That said, given the travel profile you described, I would probably focus on maximizing cashback and use those “free” funds to buy more comfortable seats outright.

Farmerberg wrote: ↑Sat Feb 25, 2023 5:47 pm
Yes, is primarily domestic travel. In December we travelled across the country. Changed planes in CLT. Purchased full fare tix and my wife was unhappy that were couldn’t get into the club since we only purchased domestic tix. Her comment to the receptionist there was “I paid full fare and there are people in there who are here on credit card comps and I can’t get in?”

Alaska is, I think, the only domestic airline that offers lounge access to First Class passengers. And even they recently restricted that to long haul travel of 2100+ miles. Lounges are suffering from overcrowding. To expect club access with a full fare ticket is unrealistic. Hopefully it wasn’t the reason for choosing that fare class.

Big fan of the GM Rewards Card. While Goldman's customer service has been consistently mediocre, its rewards return rate is stellar - 4%. While you are locked in to buying a GM vehicle, few cards out there offer a flat 4% return rate on all purchases. It also offers a great way to save up for a car without thinking about it. I'm surprised the card isn't more popular. What's GM? Is it Goldman, or General Motors? GM is General Motors. A card issued by GS (Goldman Sachs). What is UR? How do you obtain free luggage, legroom upgrade, and first class flight upgrades? Are these automatically offered to you or is there something you need to do? (My wife is INSISTING that we travel business class or better. It’s so not worth it to me, so if I can g...

gurusw wrote: ↑Sat Feb 25, 2023 3:26 pm
Anyways, are there other options than COBRA? What would the health insurance for a family of 3 would cost?

You can probably find out the cost of COBRA from your W-2. Box 12, Code DD. Add 2% as the fee the employer is allowed to add.

Alternatives would be ACA plans. In CA see the Covered California website.

obgraham wrote: ↑Fri Feb 24, 2023 3:32 pm Other than saying "don't do it", nobody's given a valid reason why two people should not share a computer if that's the way they function best.

Then you missed my very first post.

TravelGeek wrote: ↑Wed Feb 22, 2023 10:04 am Not just a matter of trust, but also a matter of separating preferences and settings across system and apps.

No personal experience with transferring an HSA, but Fidelity has worked well for me. Why pay $2.95/month for 20 years?

https://www.fidelity.com/go/hsa/transfer

It’s 2023 - separate accounts on shared computers ( or even phones ) are standard (and best) practice... I'm a lowly iPhone user. I never knew you could have separate accounts on phones . I'd settle for separate accounts on tablets (iPad). (They can do it in education settings, so I know it's possible.) :? Not sure if iOS supports it, but Android apparently has it. I have seen it in my settings, but didn’t explore it further since I have no reason to share my personal phone with anyone other than very occasionally letting someone make a phone call or giving my wife my phone for navigation when I am driving. https://www.androidcentral.com/how-add-multiple-users-and-use-guest-mode-your-android-phone Shouldn't people have their own computers?...

brad.clarkston wrote: ↑Wed Feb 22, 2023 2:12 pm
It's 2023 that's a basic feature at this point, multiple cloud-based password managers of much lower quality than 1Pass has it I only used BitWarden as an equal level example. If it was a local only PM (think default keepass) I'd be more sympathetic as they are far more security strict - 1Password is not one of those.

It’s 2023 - separate accounts on shared computers (or even phones) are standard (and best) practice. A lot of applications and services depend on it. Two concurrent logins is not a problem, just not on the same screen/keyboard (console). It makes little sense to me to design any application, but specifically not a security application, to support a requirement that is contrary to best practices.

pizzy wrote: ↑Wed Feb 22, 2023 1:42 pm For domestic rentals, you should be covered with your current automobile insurance.

For international rentals, you should be using a CSR, Venture X, etc. to pay for the rental and declining all optional CDW coverage.

For international rentals, any credit card coverage will be primary (since your personal automobile insurance generally doesn’t cover international rentals), so the cards with primary rental car coverage don’t really have an advantage here. They are primarily (pun intended) useful for domestic rentals where they keep any damage claim off your insurance record.

I have AAA. And flat tires and dead batteries aren’t very expensive in any case, compared to a crashed car. So I am accepting the risk of paying for a new tire or battery and cover larger risks with my Chase Primary Rental Car coverage. In over 30 years of renting I had one flat tire, about a mile from the airport where I picked up the car. Alamo sent a roadside assistance vehicle to change the tire, and I returned the vehicle with the donut to the airport. As far as I recall, they charged me for roadside assistance (and said they would charge for the tire, but in the end never did).

brad.clarkston wrote: ↑Wed Feb 22, 2023 10:16 am That is not a reasonable answer since BitWarden allows up to 2 concurrent users to be logged in on desktop/mobile at a time on the free version and five on the paid version and I think 6 on the family plan.

I expected better from a top tier password manager.

That is not a reasonable answer (either). Obviously, if this requirement is a must-have for you, then by all means make your purchasing decision based on that requirement. But it should be clear that two different products will have different features and implementations. I am pretty sure that I could find a niche feature in 1Password that Bit Warden doesn’t have, and that doesn’t mean that Bit Warden isn’t a good product.

Domadosolo wrote: ↑Wed Feb 22, 2023 9:21 am PSA:
The unfortunate answer is that 1Password supports only 1 user on each Mac OS login.

That seems to be a reasonable implementation to me given that I would not share my MacOS login with another user. Not just a matter of trust, but also a matter of separating preferences and settings across system and apps.

I think my approach would depend on how much I would care about burning down my relationship (ability to rent) with the agency. If it someone like Fox or similar 3rd or 4th tier agency that I could live without, I would go the dispute route if a first attempt at resolving it peacefully via customer service failed. If it was one of the majors (and that includes all the sub brands of Hertz, Avis, and Enterprise), I would spend more time working my way up the corporate chain, perhaps sending an appeal to executive management/CEO. Sadly frontline customer support ant many companies is not known for logical thinking and being empowered to make decisions based on logic. So definitely would help to know who the company is. Posts like this are why ...

In that case, the customer made a mistake. The only nuisance is that if you ever want to do business with them using this particular email address, you might not be able to because they already registered an account with them. I have had that experience with Snapchat and a few other similar services. People signing up and apparently. Not knowing their own email addresses, so the”confirm your email” comes to one of mine. Some services are good about handling this scenarios, and for others I basically have to take over the (new) account by changing the password to something long and random because customer service doesn’t do anything. I think it was Schwab where some customer (?) had submitted an email for my domain as that of their financia...

Did you then ever use/play the ripped files? Or have they just been sitting on a hard drive gathering digital dust? Oh sure. The whole set of MP3s is on my Google Drive, and I have try favorite albums stored locally on my phone and iPad (app that syncs with and lets me choose from Google Drive) and listen to them “offline” during long plane trips. And I have the whole collection on an SSD in my car and use it on road trips. I am not really interested in most contemporary music (stuck in the 80s, with some jazz and classic music mixed in). And I am not interested in paying Spotify etc. a monthly subscription for music I already paid for. I have not used the FLAC files, but wanted an uncompressed format “just in case” (storage is cheap). Fun...

Ripped all my CDs (300-ish?) with EAC to MP3 and FLAC some ten years ago when I anticipated a move to “forever home” and didn’t want to keep physical media. Used whatever computer I had, and did the whole thing as I found spare time over the course of a few weeks. I certainly wouldn’t build a machine specifically for this one-time task. Obviously, if the intention is to start a business that focuses on ripping other people’s CDs, I would think through optimizing the flow, but I doubt that the hardware is really the bottleneck.

But there's no way to guarantee it will continue working. If your bank changed SMS providers, it might suddenly stop working. While GV has a very large fan base here, I can almost guarantee that no bank takes that into consideration. There is no way to guarantee anything will continue working. Chase has also eliminated email 2FA for many ( source ). The way this game works is to pick the best available option (safest, most convenient, whatever) and use it as long as possible, always being aware that you don’t control what is available and that banks/services can always add or remove options. It’s pretty much impossible for most people to use a single solution across all services unless they are willing to compromise on security. It’s unfor...

I had been thinking about it for years, and finally pulled the plug last year. I wasn’t unhappy with my decision, many years ago, to use some sort of automatic investment plan by my then-employer to invest in Contrafund. Could have done a lot worse. But I wanted to simplify our portfolio and get rid of the annual cap gains distributions. Moved the funds to VTI.