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Tags: Credit Cards / Europe / Technology / France / Travel News / Paris / → All Tags

Did You Want To Use Your Credit Card In Europe? Sorry.

As if the cratering dollar wasn't enough of a problem for US tourists, the New York Times reports that even trying to use American credit cards in Europe is getting difficult. The problem is in the so-called chip-and-PIN verification technology that much of the world is adopting as an alternative to magnetic strip cards. Instead of swiping your card you're supposed punch in a personal ID that needs to match the one encoded on the chip. Only problem: US credit cards mostly don't have those chips.

The writeup manages to convey the issue with all the cosmopolitan awareness we've come to expect from the NYT Travel section. They relate the story of a passive-aggressive couple in Paris who—having had their cards rejected by bike kiosks—just walked around sullenly telling no one in particular how would awesome if they could ride a bike. Obnoxious. But that doesn't make the problem any less real:

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Tags: Frequent Flyer Programs / Virgin America / Richard Branson / Credit Cards / → All Tags

Virgin America Wants to Tap That Cash

In what is most likely another step towards world domination for Richard Branson, members of Elevate, the Virgin America loyalty program, have been receiving actual mail from the airline this last week.

Don't worry about missing out; the envelopes are just more credit card application junk as it seems Virgin America is trading a little cool for a lot of cash. Evidently, they are now trying to get in your pants...pocket, we mean, with a Visa Signature Card. (Previously, Virgin Altantic announced an Amex card.)

Of course they are beginning with the VA fans first and directly positioning themselves to counter Jetblue's TrueBlue Visa by offering no annual fee and all that other APR mumbo jumbo.

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Tags: SkyEurope / Low Cost Carriers / LCCs / Credit Cards / → All Tags

SkyEurope Caters to Nervous Online Customers

European low cost carrier SkyEurope has just started a new payment system for customers who get freaked out about putting their credit card details onto the internet. In the modern spirit of joining a bunch of words together with no capitals or hyphens, it's the paysafecard, a pre-paid PIN-protected card that you can use online instead of putting your real credit card info at risk.

SkyEurope is the first airline to hop on the paysafecard bandwagon and they're pretty proud about it, calling it "revolutionary." Whether or not they'll really pick up extra customers this way is something we question, but the idea is certainly not a bad one.

The catch is you have to buy it in pre-paid amounts (of €10, €25, €50 or €100), so you're going to keep ending up with leftover money. Maybe they need to revolutionize the idea just a bit more.

Related Stories:
· SkyEurope Accepts Payments Via paysafecard [Peanuts]
· SkyEurope Coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: Dr. Jaus]

Tags: Virgin Atlantic / Chris Rossi / Airline News / Richard Branson / Airline Parties / Credit Cards / → All Tags

Virgin Atlantic Announces US Credit Card with Stellar Reward

Well, all our speculation came to naught: Don't look for massage chairs or hotel tie-ins on a Virgin Atlantic flight any time soon. But buying expensive hotel rooms and massages is one way to rack up miles on the new Virgin Atlantic AmEx, which also offers a 10 percent discount on Premium Economy fares through the rest of the year.

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Tags: Crime / Credit Cards / Hotels / → All Tags

Hotel Key Cards Mean the Slurpees are Free

At first it made no sense. Why were suspected Vegas hookers and drug addicts often found carrying so many key cards from hotels and casinos? The suspects claimed that they were souvenirs or things they'd just happened to find, but that didn't exactly make sense. It turned out that criminals had got their hands on used-up cards, wiped them clean of whatever data was on them, and then re-coded them with someone's stolen credit-card info. The "credit cards" were then used in places like convenience stores or gas stations for purchases under $20 or so -- small purchases don't set off fraud alarms the way larger bills do. OK, fine, but would it be too much to ask that a credit card actually be embossed with someone's name and not just be printed with a Hilton or Hard Rock logo?

Note that this identity-theft wrinkle is separate from the debunked urban legend that hotel-room key cards are often encoded with personal information about guests.

Related Stories:
·   Street-Level Credit Card Fraud [WaPo, via Digg]