91–100 of 259 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Curious what part of the world this is in. I can recall a grand total of three places I've seen in my area do this. It's a tiny minority here.
Pretty much anywhere in Australia that isn't a big chain
If you like to travel, you can essentially travel "for free" by simply doing these two things: 1. Put all of your purchases on the travel rewards card 2. Pay it off in full every month, no exceptions
What do you mean by "for free"? Would you be paying for your travels in full, the next month?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure. I suppose my argument is along the following lines - books are too cumbersome so let's scroll Instagram instead. It's a fake argument, it's not that big a deal, you just didn't care enough about reading books.
Why would I care about how I pay for things though? You're the one saying I should value some particular method over others. But the reality is I don't care at all: I'm trying to buy milk and go home.
If you don’t care, you don’t care. I gave up a long time ago too. In that case it would be annoying enough if the privacy preserving card were just 1cm longer or something that you wouldn’t use it.
I prefer cash, not for the reasons mentioned. First, cash makes me really think about what I'm buying. It doesn't poke you the same way when you tap a card... which is obviously one of the main reasons they want you do use cards. When I use cash, I am reminded of when I didn't have a lot, which keeps me from spending without thought. Next, its a hallmark of the middle class to spend money that you don't have. Myself…
I've heard this statistic a lot, but I haven't seen any recent evidence it is true. I used to work for a bank, and our Credit Card holders would (mostly) pay off their balance every month.
We called them Transactors vs Revolvers. 85% of our CC were Transactors, and some of them would pay down multiple times a month
I got irritated with the profusion of "no cash accepted" signs a few years back and started making a point of always carrying cash, to use whenever practical. I don't take it to an extreme, but I also don't want to live in a world where every transaction is trackable and all commerce is regulated by Visa, Mastercard, Apple, or Google.
The article and none of the comments mention rewards yet, which are the biggest reason to use cards! Credit card processors charge large fees on transactions, which is a huge tax on just about... everything. You can make a lot of that tax back via rewards. And not every card user has a good rewards-paying card - it's usually the more rich that do - so rewards function as a wealth transfer from the less rich to the mo…
Various studies have shown that, for the investment needed to "maximise your rewards" (ie time needed to research the different cards on the market / read the fine print of your chosen product / put through payments on a high rewards card; money on signup fees, recurring fees, transaction fees, etc), you'll achieve a much better ROI just investing the equivalent time and money into an index fund.
Anyone who gives a 3% discount for cash will get cash from me, but I already have all my money in index funds. The effort to maximize points is “use this credit card, get the cash back”.
It’s really not that much effort, for rich people with excellent credit. It is of course a hugely regressive system, but that wasn’t the argument you made.
The article and none of the comments mention rewards yet, which are the biggest reason to use cards! Credit card processors charge large fees on transactions, which is a huge tax on just about... everything. You can make a lot of that tax back via rewards. And not every card user has a good rewards-paying card - it's usually the more rich that do - so rewards function as a wealth transfer from the less rich to the mo…
I’m generally a pretty responsible credit user. I pay the whole bill each month and never paid a dime in interest. But I’d be lying if I said I never justified a slightly larger purchase that I would have otherwise made by calculating the “discount” from the points. Doing this just one time on a modestly large purchase can effectively negate all the points you might earn in a given year.
I found even moving to a debit card helped in two ways. One, the point game goes away. But I think more importantly, when spending on a debit card you see the balance go down, so there is an instant and clear impact of the expense. With a credit card the number goes up, and you have to invert it and do the math in your head to feel the expense in the moment, which most people don’t do. And when people look at their bank balance at it hasn’t moved, they think they still have that money to spend. It’s subtle, you might not realize it, but those are the games they play. I’ve probably saved more money from simply spending less, than I would make in points.
I do keep one credit card around that I use for my recurring online payments. These are set it and forget it, so the psychology plays less of a role, as far as I can tell. And I review all the stuff on that recurring list on a regular basis to keep it lean. I have to spend $5k to make $100 in points. Who cares? It’s a lot easier to trim $200 or even $500 out of $5k in terms of spending, if I’m really looking to maximize my savings. Not to mention, the points aren’t cash in your pocket, they are an excuse to spend even more.
Let’s say I have points to get a free flight. Great, now I’m also spending money out of pocket on a hotel, meals, entertainment, etc. That “free” $600 plane ticket actually costs $5k in other expenses, but it’s ok, because we’re earning $100 more in points for spending that $5k.
It’s a trap. It’s subtle, it might feel like a win, but they’re coming at you from several different angles. It’s not just about the people paying interest on their balance. They make about as much on the interchange fees from high volume users as they do from those interest payments. Those points are also a trick to get you to swipe more to boost their interchange fee profits.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Meanwhile, there's no apparent way to pay for a train using an American android phone (or at least I couldn't figure it out last year). One of the two apps refused to install on non-japanese phones, the other installed but refused to run. Had to pay with cash and it was a huge pain. Half the time I inexplicably had to do a fare adjustment, a hugely embarrassing moment blocking the turnstile, especially considering th…
That’s thanks to Android phone manufacturers, which don’t want to pay for a global license for the NFC tech involved. Apple on the other hand does pay for a global license and so iPhones and Apple Watches from anywhere work perfectly with Japanese cash card terminals. I use a digital Suica on my US iPhone during my visits. Supposedly Pixels have the requisite hardware, but Google software locks the functionality to J…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osaifu-Keitai
I can't really fault Android manufacturers for not wanting to pay extra for every phone in the world to get a bit of proprietary tech that's completely useless outside Japan.
The article and none of the comments mention rewards yet, which are the biggest reason to use cards! Credit card processors charge large fees on transactions, which is a huge tax on just about... everything. You can make a lot of that tax back via rewards. And not every card user has a good rewards-paying card - it's usually the more rich that do - so rewards function as a wealth transfer from the less rich to the mo…
Various studies have shown that, for the investment needed to "maximise your rewards" (ie time needed to research the different cards on the market / read the fine print of your chosen product / put through payments on a high rewards card; money on signup fees, recurring fees, transaction fees, etc), you'll achieve a much better ROI just investing the equivalent time and money into an index fund.