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Stephen Sprunk

On 05-Mar-12 11:48, wrote:
On Mar 3, 3:45 pm, Stephen Sprunk wrote:
(* My personal rule is that one should never be paying for something
after one has finished using it. So, credit only makes sense for things
like education, housing, durable goods, etc. Not for train tickets,
certainly.)

My personal rule is the cost of the transaction. If there is no
charge to use the credit card when the bill is paid in full on time
(which is usually the case), then the credit card is a nice
convenience for a variety of reasons. In addition, some banks give
bonus points for heavy use of the card.

If you use it as a charge card (i.e. paying the bill in full every
month), that's not objectionable, provided you actually have the money
available at the time of the charge and using the card is merely a
matter of convenience, rather than delaying payment until the money is
available. Most people only get into trouble with _revolving_ credit.

Expenses promptly reimbursed by one's employer are another exception,
since it's really the employer's money being spent, not yours.

Returning to trains, at a recent train show, the merchants had radio
based credit card validators. They were wholly self contained and
didn't require WiFi or anything else. A power outlet was nice to
charge the battery but not necessary.

The technology to do this has been available for more than a decade, and
I've seen such terminals at several conventions over the years, though I
can't recall how long ago the first one was. There are now even card
reader and receipt printer add-ons for smartphones; I had a taxi driver
run my card that way a year or two ago.

S

--
Stephen Sprunk "God does not play dice." --Albert Einstein
CCIE #3723 "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the
K5SSS dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking