Further Support for the Schwab Visa

Recently we were at Real buying phone cards (because when you purchase from Real, you get extra minutes for free with the Play cell phone service) and I decide to try out the exchange rates for my new Charles Schwab Visa. So I bought two cards at the same time - one with my trusty USAA MasterCard and one with my new Charles Schwab Visa.

This is what I found (I know it’s not scientific):

-The Exchange rate that I got for cash from the embassy (for government employees only) was 3.642.

-For the 50zl charge, USAA charged me $13.57 ($13.44 for the purchase plus a foreign currency fee of $0.13). Their ROE was 3.720 (plus $.13)

-For the 50zl charge, Schwab charged me $13.42 (vice $13.44 from USAA). Their ROE was 3.725 but with no extra fee.

For this transaction alone: USAA at the end of the year will give me 13 cents back – Schwab at the end of the month will give me 27 cents back.

Total end cost of the transaction shows USAA will give me that 50zl phone card for $13.44 whereas Schwab would give it to me for $13.15.

If I didn't lose you with the incredibly boring numbers - The Charles Schwab Visa is blowing away its closest competitor, IMHO. Their biggest flaw still is that they don't allow you to sync with MS Money... But if I'm paying less everytime I use the card- I guess I can take the trade-off.

Yet Again, Not Happy With Captial One

Several months ago my wife and I quit going to Oh-Sushi, our then-favorite restaurant for Sushi. The reason we quit going wasn’t the food, but the fact that every time I used my Capital One card, I was being charged in U.S. Dollars (at a really bad exchange rate) rather than being charged in Polish Zloty.

They claimed that the machine processed the transaction automatically and there was nothing they could do about it. While I would have liked to believe them, I never had a problem before – so I wrote about it and we just stopped going to that restaurant. We found another Sushi place that took my Capital One card and always charged me in PLN rather than USD.

I was ready to write it off as an uncooperative merchant, but recently I went with a big group of people to another restaurant in Wilanow called Castello’s. I paid for the whole bill with my Capital One card and imagine my shock when I went to sign for eh card and noticed that they had already converted the Exchange rate for me into USD – at a really terrible rate (3.25 vs. the rate of the day which was closer to 3.75).

I was a bit livid and tore into the guy for charging me in USD. He insisted (and I believe him) that the machine automatically calculated the amount, probably based on the fact it was a US Dollar-based credit card.

I started to see a pattern. So I went back to Castello's this past weekend and paid with my shiny new Charles Schwab card. There was no problem paying in Polish Zloty and I got the fair exchange rate and presumably I will get back the full 2% back in cash rebates.

I cannot find anything about this online, but it looks to me that Capital One and Polcard have an agreement that in some establishments (possibly limited to certain restaurants), the credit card will be charged in the base currency of card. Polcard makes a substantial profit from the crappy exchange rate, and I assume that somehow there is an incentive for Capital One because they do not charge a foreign currency transaction fee.

This is yet another reason to ditch my Capital One card. I unfairly blamed the restaurants, but now I see this is definitely a problem with the credit card company – specifically Capital One.

My advice - If you do use a Capital One card overseas - carefully monitor how you are being charged. If ever given the option select the local currency, and if not given the option - use another credit card.

Wonderful Warranties

I've been posting a lot about warranties lately, and I started making a mental list of the things that I've had serviced (or even replaced) under the manufacturer's warranty. The list started getting long.

These are some of my most recent warranty experiences:

-Kind of expensive surge protector - Mailed it in to get replaced

-Bose Earphones - Mailed in to get replaced

-iPod Touch - Took to the local Apple Serwis Shop where it was deemed to need replacement

-Wireless Keyboard - replaced free of charge by the store

-Memory Stick - replaced free of charge by the manufacturer

-Western Digital Hard Drive (2 times) - Replaced no questions asked by the Manufacturer

-Dell Computer - Had it serviced here in Poland - under warranty - no questions asked.

-Christmas gifts - One replaced by the website that sold it (no questions asked) and one that was a little more painful - but they still replaced it.

-Cast Iron Frying Pan - Bought 18 months ago and it cracked. The manufacturer sent a new one with no questions asked.

All-in-all we've had excellent luck lately with getting things serviced under warranty. Almost zero complaints. Now it might help when I'm contacting these places I explain that I'm stationed overseas and that I need assistance from afar, but whatever - I have a lot more faith that I'm getting my money's worth for the things I buy.

Of course the question becomes - what happens when the new/fixed items break again... I guess I'll end up doing exactly what the manufacturers hope that I do - buy new ones...

Octane Rating

Have you ever found yourself wondering "What's up with the octane ratings here?"

When I first got here, I really didn't know which gas to buy. The Shell station next to my house has unleaded with 91 and 95 octane. 91 octane for unleaded seems a lot higher than gas in the States. So does that mean regular gas here has a a higher octane rating than premium gas in the US?

No.

If you’re interested in the science check out the Wikipedia article.

Here’s the Reader’s Digest version: There are two methods to calculate Octane rating in gasoline: Motor Octane Number (MON) and Research Octane Number (RON).

What’s more important than what they are, is where they are used. In the states, the number on the pump is the average of these two ratings. Here in Poland (and much of the rest of the world) they just use the RON (or the larger) number.

Why do you care? If your car is American, check out the owner’s manual. It will tell you the minimum octane rating (most likely the average of RON and MON). For example my '07 Dodge Grand Caravan lists the rating at 87 Octane. Great - If I was in the States. For some reason the Dodge's owner's manual does not list the international RON rating. Probably because it would confuse people.

I dug through the Owner's manuals on my motorcycles and found a much clearer answer:

My '09 Harley takes the 95 Octane gas here; the equivalent to 91 octane on a Stateside pump.
My '91 Suzuki takes 91 Octane here; the equivalent of 87 Octane Stateside.

So that's how we roll now. For the Dodge and the Suzuki we get the 91 Octane, but not lower. Getting a lower octane is not so much a problem here in Poland, but be aware when you go to Germany because they do have the 90 RON there. That's probably not what you want to put in your car.

For the Harley - She takes premium - which as long as I get the 95 RON, I'm good.

Most mechanics will agree that unless your owner's manual specifically says otherwise - there is usually no need to put in more expensive gas than necessary. Certainly not on a regular basis.

Confused? Ask the attendant - Even if it's not marked - they can tell you what the octane rating is. It does help to be able to count to ten in Polish...

So the next time you're at the pump - make sure you're putting in only what you need. It could save you several bucks each time you go to the pump. Over a year (depending on the exchange rate) that could add up to some serious zlotys...

PayPal - The Forgotten Friend

I've found a renewed interest in PayPal lately.


PayPal, for those not familiar, is a service that allows to you send and receive money to just about anyone. Anyone with an email address and a bank account. Its kind of like Western Union for the 21st century.


Most people who have an account, use it for eBay. By design, eBay makes it easy to use Paypal and hard to use anything else.

Recently I paid for shipping my new motorcycle with an international company. They took my credit card, but charged me over $40 for the privilege of doing so. They said I could do a bank transfer, but that would mean bank fees. Turns out - they took PayPal. I could have sent the cash from my checking account for free and saved the $40. Ironically - I ended up paying their credit card fees with PayPal.

Lately I've also used it to send money for Girl Scout Cookies, paid a couple of bills and even entered a Scrapbooking Challenge (okay, that last one was for my wife).


The only reason that I even mention them is that I recently found out more about the other end of what they do (Collecting money rather than giving it). If you have a small business, their credit card rates are pretty good, and with one major exception - they are practically hassle-free.

So if you don't have an account - you can get one here.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Typically we Americans think of Thanksgiving as a time to be thankful for all that we have – and we think of the day after Thanksgiving as the best day to get more stuff to be thankful for!

So Happy Turkey Day – Enjoy the stuffing – and to make you feel at home – check out some of the sites tomorrow for Christmas deals and bargains. Remember, nothing says I love you to your brother-in-law, like sending him a whole stack of $1 USB cables for Christmas!

Ben’s Bargains.net - This is one of my favorite sites for finding cheap crap I don’t need. I’ve been know to buy super sized race tracks, miniature Batmen, and completely useless network cables because they were all cheap.

XP Bargains and Tech Bargains - Both are similar websites that give deals on electronic equipments mostly. Extremely helpful if you know exactly what you want - otherwise a great time waster.

Retail-Me-Not is a great website for when you get to the checkout portion of a website and it asks you for a coupon code. Surf over to this site just to see if you can get any extra cash off - I've saved quite a bit using these guys.

Turns out there are a million websites like the one above - but someone recently sent me the link for CurrentCodes.com and that looks pretty promising as well.

And lastly - if you are looking for deals online to send to relatives in The States - don't wait until Black Friday (tomorrow) or Cyber Monday next week - Poke around today after you finish you turkey - Many of the best deals that you're going to find (until December) are posted today.

Happy hunting!

The Language Tax

In the almost 11 years I’ve spent overseas, I've noticed a phenomenon that I haven't seen addressed anywhere else. For lack of a better term - I call it "The Language Tax".

The language tax is when you pay more for something because you don't know how to get the better deal because: You don’t speak the language!

As much as I'd like to think I'm cheap enough to always find the better deal, I know that I pay too much for some things, and I just don't know how to fix it.

It almost happened to me again at the mall a couple of weeks ago. My wife was buying matching clothes for this year’s family Christmas photo (I think I was pressed against the glass front of the store with a please-save-me look), and we racked up a fairly big bill. The lady behind the counter asked if we had a discount card to the store (all in Polish), and I answered no. No is one of the few words I do know in Polish. The nice lady then asked us if we wanted to be part of the discount club and I assumed that there was a charge... Luckily while she was checking us out, I looked up and was able to ask if there was a charge or not. She said no so I said “Sure - I'll take one of those cards.” End result: 2 minutes later I saved 25% off new clothes for six people.

This also happens with most of us who don't bother to get the Skarbonka Card at Auchan and the equivalent card at Real. I know that I can save money (although admittedly I have no idea how it actually works) but I just don’t have the motivation to ask and try to fill out the little card they have.

I mean, if you don't read the language, and you don't find someone who speaks English, it's easy to just mentally calculate the anticipated cost of the purchase, get your faktura and get the heck out of there.

The negative thing here is that I have no idea how you solve this. I had to ask someone else to figure out the Skarbonka thing. 5-a-sec has a frequent shopper's card that I never bought because it supposedly saves you money – but not on everything… I’m pretty sure I’d save the money over a year, but I can’t ask the questions I want to – ‘cause I don’t speak the language.

But my biggest problem is the lack of the good old boy's hardware store. Back in Texas, if I wanted to take on a household project, I'd go down to the hardware store (Preferably Andy’s Hardware off of FM 249) with a list, and find the first knowledgeable person I could and start peppering them with questions. By the time I left the store I knew that I could go home and figure out at least how to get started on whatever it is I was working on. Here I don't have that luxury - so instead of buying the parts needed to fix the hose - I'm pretty likely to just buy a new hose.

The other thing is finding the bargains. In the states I'd check out the newspaper ads or check out the internet ads and head out to the store – Here, I’m sure I could do the same but I don’t have a newspaper subscription, and I have no idea what the Polish equivalent of BensBargains.net is.

Again, this is the by-product of a stranger living in a strange land. It's not something that I'm going to fix unless I really learn the language.

Gift Cards –

I caught this on TV yesterday – one of these Sunday finance shows…

They speculated that anyone who has a gift card from a retail merchant needs to spend them. The crux that was for a lot of the smaller stores, they may have trouble staying open after the Christmas season.

I thought it was a bunch of baloney until they pointed out that Sharper Image filed for bankruptcy and left a lot of people with worthless gift cards. I was stunned.

So if you have friend or family that send you gift cards for the holidays, I’d spend them just as fast as humanly possible. I would never have thought this was a big deal, but apparently the companies have the right to just say no! Unbelievable right?

Hopefully if you have a gift card to Wal*Mart or Target there’s little chance those companies are gong to go bankrupt– but Sharper Image was a pretty big store – Caveat Emptor!

The Only Four Reasons That I Still Have a Capital One Card:

Since last friday was a rant against Capital One, I only thought it fair to say some nice things about them - I was going to list ten, but I could only think of four:

4. No foreign currency transaction fees. They’re the only bank that I found so far that really doesn’t charge you foreign currency transaction fees.

3. Premium rebate on gas and [most] groceries. 2% is better than 1% and with a family of six, we do buy a lot of groceries and gas.

2. I get to pick my own picture to put on the card. Do I put a picture of my lovely wife or darling children on my card? No, I put my Suzuki VX-800 motorcycle on the front of my card!

1. Military Discounts. Just for being Active Duty Military they reduced my interest rate (purchases and cash advance) to 6%. There are no membership/annual fees, pay-by-phone fees, cash advance fees, past-due fees, over-the-credit-limit fees or returned payment fees. Any fees that I would have had amassed while on active duty would have been retroactively credited back to my account. And they reduced my monthly payment to 2% or $10 (the higher of the two) when the rest of the industry is raising theirs (although I think that has just been changed again by federal law).

As far as I see, that last one makes the Capital One card by far a better deal than USAA, Navy Federal or the Pentagon Federal Credit Union – which is a little sad.

Blu-Ray

Those of you who know me in real life, have probably heard me bring up my Blu-Ray DVD player. I usually try to bring it up in the first ten minutes of conversation.

I caught this spectacular deal on a Sony BDP-S350 before it was released (I'm convinced the AAFES website mistakenly listed a lower price) and jumped all over it as a natural compliment to my HD TV that I never get to use the HD portion for (because I'm way too cheap to buy a satellite service with HD programing).

After having it for a couple of months I cannot recommend that other people invest in Blu-Ray. Not yet anyway.

Don't get me wrong, the picture is just the best thing I have ever seen and it turns out my TV doesn't even show movies in 1080p format (which is the best on the market now). I own three BluRay movies (all animated) the picture on play-back is almost indescribable.

The cost is just stupid though. $400 is still a typical price for a Blu-Ray DVD player, with prices not expected to fall under $300 this year. Movies cost $27.99 at AAFES and at Amazon.com, although you can catch a deal when they are first released.

I'm just not sure it's really worth it. You can get great DVD players for just over $100 that up-convert "regular" DVDs and play the on high definition TVs that I've got to assume would be comparable. I don't regret the Blu-Ray player I bought, but I think our current home movie collection of Blu-Ray DVDs (which consists of the two Disney Pixar movies and one Dreamworks movie) might be as big as it gets until the prices drop. I'm using Netflix to get Blu-Ray DVD's in order to justify the purchase of the thing, but anyone who uses Netflix from here surely shares my aggravation with that process.

So - if you're thinking about buying one - you might want to check it out in person first. Oh, and if you were thinking of getting one here in Poland - you'll be irritated to know that the stupid regional encoding system that they branded DVD players with, still exists with Blu-Ray. Which means that if your player is from Europe, you pretty much have to buy the DVD's in Europe. What a scam that is.

US Cards Might Not Work Overseas

Not too long ago I stumbled upon this headline in another blog: "Why Your Credit Card Might Be Useless Overseas". I clicked through to the cited Los Angeles Times Article that highlights several portions of one man's trip through Europe where his American-issued credit cards just didn't work.

While this is unlikely to affect any of us during our tours in Poland, it does raise a good point. In Europe, many banks issue a credit card with a “pin” number and a security chip that is supposed to make using your credit card safe. This is not the same as our US-based credit cards and the cash advance PIN that some of us have on them.

This "pin card" really isn't an emerging problem in Warsaw, but there is an automated kiosk in the movie theater in Galeria Mokotow that allows you to skip the really long lines (most recently I noticed at the premiere of Mamma Mia) and buy your tickets right at the little kiosk. The problem with that kiosk is that you need that magic credit card with pin. As I was creating a line back-up, I tried two US-based credit cards with pins as well as my debit charge card that also has a pin. Nothing worked – I had to go stand in the long line.

You need that same pin card to use the automated check-out line (where the line is a thousand times shorter) at the Carrefour in Arkadia. Otherwise, and I know from personal experience, the people behind you will hate you and be tempted to throw things at the back of your head.

You'll notice everywhere else you shop, they have a little place that you can have your card swiped, or that little strange device where you put your card in and enter a pin. I think we are a very long way away from not being able to use our credit cards overseas.

Why Netflix Stinks... And Free Netlix!!

So many of us Americans overseas have some access to the U.S. Mail and most of us have DVD players.



Some of us have Netflix, and some of us are curious about it.



For those curious about it - Its worth a second look.

I pay for three DVDs at a time, and for the most part, I end up watching three movies a month. That averages out to like 5 bucks a movie - which although at first I thought ridiculous, actually is probably better than paying $27.99 (for BluRays) for a movie that I'll watch once the first night and then again a year later when there's nothing on AFN.



The only reason I signed up for the service in the first place is to get BluRay DVDs. That was it.

So I've had the service for a couple of months and while the videos are exactly what we want, the transit times are just painfully slow. What also drives me nuts is they offer a service to subscribers that streams movies to your computer... If you live in the States. And the biggest scam? I just got an email that says - and I am not making this up:



" Dear Dylan,



As you may know, Blu-ray movies are more expensive than standard definition movies. As a result, we're going to start charging $1 a month (plus applicable taxes), in addition to your monthly membership charge, for unlimited access to Blu-ray movies.



The additional charge for unlimited Blu-ray access will be automatically added to your next billing statement on or after November 5th, 2008 and will be referenced in your Membership Terms and Details. If you wish to continue getting Blu-ray movies for $1 a month more, you don't need to do anything. If not, you can remove Blu-ray access anytime by visiting Your Account at the Netflix website.



If you have questions about this change or need any assistance, please call us anytime at 1-888-638-3549.



-The Netflix Team"



So there you have it - If you watch BluRay DVDs - which is the only thing I actually use the service for - you are going to get screwed because they can squeeze an extra buck out of you.



But if you're interested - let me know -I have some free codes for the first month of service.

Free Cable!

In our little housing area down here in Konstancin, we get free cable TV - kind of.

Now I'm talking about like 8 channels with only one channel (BBC) in English (two if you count MTV2) and for the most part it's useless, but its free none-the-less.

Do you get free cable? The reason I ask is that I'm still meeting other expats in the neighborhood that have lived here for awhile and had no idea. This revolutionary information is not changing anyone's lives out here in Konstancin, but it is nice to see the local channels with a clear reception.

I've got to imagine if you live in an apartment, it's worth asking the question to the building management staff (assuming you're not enjoying it already). I would reason the same would hold true for other small gated communities.

All I'm saying is it might be worth a shot. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going back to watching the latest Madonna Video on MTV2 - I think its from 1987...

Just Say No to Being Charged in USD!

I mentioned it before but was reminded again – never select a currency other than the local currency when making purchases overseas. Trust me on this!

‘Oh Sushi charged my credit card in USD the last time I went at an ROE of 2.24 (the exchange rate that day was actually 2.44!). When I became irritated, the waitress told me that the computer did it by itself; however the time before that they did ask me what currency I wanted to pay in.

I fully concede that maybe it wasn’t her fault, but we went ahead and found a new Sushi place.