- American Airlines’ Stake in China Southern Airlines Is Now Official by Skift. This has been on the cards for some time.
- Explanation for the Electronics Ban: Fake iPad Carrying Explosives by View From The Wing. What I don’t get is why it matters if the device is in the hold or in the hands of a passenger. Either way if the bomb goes off everybody is in a lot of trouble regardless of where the actual item is. There is actually some discussion of this in the comments as well.
- Supreme Court rules credit-card surcharge ban regulates speech by Jurist. Interesting.
- Swagbucks has sent out a targeted offer for 1,500 SB when you use their shopping portal once. The subject line is “Bonus SB just for you”. Thanks to reader Francesco M.
It would be nice to see more commentary on the implications of the third point in this post. If sellers are allowed to impose higher prices for credit card transactions, I wonder how many would charge different prices for different payment methods? Even though I (seemingly) benefit from the current law and can rack up lots of CC rewards because of it, I think that sellers should have the right to have different prices for each payment method. If it is bad business then the market will react and hurt their bottom line, but if it is better for their business to have different prices for each payment method then more power to them. That being said, I’m not convinced that charging different prices for different payment methods would be beneficial for most sellers: 1) Credit cards do offer a form of protection against fraud, which could justify charging the same price for each method. Most sellers have to accommodate for 2.5-3% in fees for credit card transactions, but have decent protections if someone were to use a stolen credit card, for instance. If the seller only accepts cash/checks/etc., they will have to accommodate for losses related to counterfeit bills and bounced checks; I don’t have any idea of how frequent this would be, but I think it would be reasonable to assume that it would be similar to the fees associated with accepting credit cards. (Debit cards strike a balance between both of these methods so that might be worth exploring as well.) 2) Credit card transactions are usually easier to automate and faster than cash, which should increase a business’ profit. Anecdotally, fumbling through my pockets for the correct bills and coins usually takes more time than using a credit card; a cashier breaking a $20 and getting change might be a little faster, but probably still slower than using a credit card. Automation (i.e. self check-out) seems to be much easier for cards vs cash, and cuts down on the total number of employees needed (i.e. lowers the cost of each transaction). This would more beneficial for stores with a large number of transactions. 3) Charging different prices might decrease credit card use, which would decrease total sales (i.e. the banks know how to get consumers to spend more money). Even though I don’t recommend paying credit card interest, many consumers are playing with money that won’t be in their bank account for awhile (or ever). So many consumers wouldn’t have access to the products that are being sold if it weren’t for credit cards, which would decrease total sales. 4) Charging different prices might upset credit card customers (though it could also make cash-paying customers happy if prices decreased). This is mostly a short-run issue in my opinion, but there probably is a longer-term impact here. The best example I can think of is when many airlines started charging for checked bags (shortly after 9/11 if I recall correctly). A lot of consumers were furious at… Read more »
Yeah it’s one of those things I’m torn on. I think sellers should absolutely have the ability to charge a surcharge for credit card payments in line with the fees they are charged, rather than offering a cash discount but at the same time that would be awful for this hobby.
“What I don’t get is why it matters if the device is in the hold or in the hands of a passenger.”
The argument for what it’s worth is it’s more difficult to trigger an explosion from the cargo hold. The device in the cargo hold will have a tough time connecting to wifi due to captcha. Of course people blew things up in cargo holds for decades using timers or you could make it pressure/altitude sensitive.
In any case it’s true you can be far more precise about where and when to blow something up if it’s in your physical control in the cabin.
What captcha? You could just create a private wifi network?
Yes, of course. Ever try to connect over wi-fi to a device separated from you by a solid metal bulkhead? It’s not easy.
Seriously? We’re talking about an iPad engineered to contain explosives, and the solution is to make it “hard” to connect to wifi? Like it’s impossible to boost the power of the wifi of the device…
The cargo area likely forms a Faraday cage around its interior and the signal is greatly attenuated by the metal enclosure; it’s not like in a home where you just add a WiFi booster to get through more walls.