Resort Fees Still Are Wrong: Some Things Do Not Change

By Robert McGarvey

Maybe it is because I now have gotten my second jab but suddenly I am again thinking about travel related issues and in my face is a new Travelers United lawsuit against MGM that flatly claims: MGM is lying about the costs of an overnight stay in their hotels.

Ouch.

The suit claims that MGM practices deceptive pricing because it “hides” the resort fee it slaps on its room nights. This adds up to big bucks – “hundreds of millions of dollars” in the past decade, per Travelers United, a traveler advocacy group based in Washington DC.

Reported Travel Weekly: “The organization claims that MGM Resorts currently charges a resort fee at all of its U.S. properties, which include the Maryland-based MGM National Harbor, located just outside of Washington, as well as the MGM Grand, Bellagio, Aria, Mandalay Bay, New York-New York and Luxor properties in Las Vegas, among others.”

Resort fees add up.  Travelers United pointed to a room night at the Luxor that cost $29 in July 2020.  The resort fee was $35 per night.

Travelers United further claims that in the pandemic resort fees have not been reduced, although some of the services and amenities the fees supposedly cover have been reduced or outright eliminated.

Of course there is nothing new about this story.  As far back as 2013 I wrote about “resort fee scams” for TheStreet.  It’s a topic I have returned to many times – 2014, 2016, 2019 and many more.

The only things that have changed is that more hotels and resorts charge them and the amounts have steadily increased.  The $19 fee of 2013 now is twice as much and, bar the door, as many hoteliers drift nearer insolvency in the Covid era expect that there will be still more and higher hidden resort fees, urban amenity fees, and who knows what else they will be called.

The other reason hoteliers do this – and I have asked many – is their assertion that the competition does it.  That is, the competitor down the road deceptively advertises a room price (by failing to disclose the resort fee) and therefore the competitor says he is obliged to do likewise or risk losing the business because consumers will take the lower price.

There is not an abundance of evidence that says this is true, especially not at higher price points.  Many guests might opt for a $99 per night room over one priced at $104 – but it just is not proven that guests would opt for a $370 hotel room over a $400 room on the basis of price alone.  So a core defense of hidden resort fees is unproven.

Also true is that hotels could clearly disclose that there is an additional fee for a bundle of services for those who opt in. Just as there are extra fees for those who use the resort or hotel WiFi in many cases (although in some cases that is bundled into a resort fee, even when the guest has no intention of using the pool, the gym, etc).

Clearly the system is based on deception and is just wrong.

But still the fees persist.

How do they get away with this?  We don’t complain and, at least for the past four years, there was no appetite in Washington, DC for taking away hotelier revenue streams.  The latter may change with a new administration but what probably won’t change is our passive acceptance of deceptive advertising.

This shoe is on our feet.  It’s up to us to demand changes.

We can also try to duck the fees. The Points Guy notes that many Las Vegas stays that are paid for with points are exempt from resort fees. That includes IHG, Hyatt and Hilton.

Another way – used by me on multiple occasions – is to book into an organization’s block of rooms for a meeting and, often, the meeting planner has negotiated a zero resort fee for attendees. That will continue if only because meetings are likely to return to Las Vegas in slow motion and resorts will be fighting for them.

But you are on your own when it comes to ducking resort fees in locations that are primarily leisure focused (as more will be in 2021 and well into 2022).  There won’t be a large corporate meeting planner that has your back.

Your other option: badger your Senators and members of the House to take action.  In 2016, Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill introduced a bill that would have blocked hidden resort fees.  It went nowhere and McCaskill lost her seat in 2018 – her stand on resort fees had no impact on that outcome.

But it could come up for a vote in the next two years, very possibly with different results in both the Senate and the House.

Remember, nobody is saying hoteliers can’t charge resort fees.  Just that they have to disclose the charge before it lands on our bill. It is just about impossible not to support that.  So write your legislators  They just may act.

What about the Travelers United suit? I applaud the effort – and maybe it will prevail. But why wait when we can take our own action?

Get busy writing your reps!

Another Day, Another Amex Plat Perk: Cell Phone Protection

by Robert McGarvey

Regular readers know I have long been gnashing my teeth over what has emerged as the annual question: Amex Plat, to renew or no?  

My most recent vote is yes, I will continue to shell out $550/year, even tho I have not been in a Centurion Club in a year and that had become my primary touch point with American Express. But in an era where I am not flying – and do not envision travel for perhaps another three months and maybe longer – I began looking for new perks from the Platinum card and Amex has responded.

Currently on the docket is a credit of up to $30/monthly on PayPal charges billed to the card. That replaces 2020 credits for streaming video and cell phones that expired at year-end. In my case, it is paying for my New York Times subscription and most of what I pay Netflix.

There’s also a continuing $15/monthly Uber credit (also applicable to Uber eats, which is how I have used it).

There also are miscellaneous and unexpected credits such as $100 annually ($50 max, every six months) against Saks charges.

There’s a similar $100 credit against HomeDepot charges (online only).  $100 at BestBuy (online only). And literally 90+ more that pop up on my screen.

But now Amex has rolled out a new perk for Plat that in effect offers cellphone protection to cardholders who bill their monthly wireless charges to Amex.  Similar protection costs $10 to $12 per month via Apple and various other carriers and retailers.

It takes effect April 1.

Here’s what it delivers: “Reimbursement for the actual cost to repair or replace a Stolen or damaged Eligible Cellular Wireless Telephone.”

There’s some fine print but surprisingly little. The coverage is reasonably generous:  “The maximum liability is $ 800, per claim, per Eligible Card Account. Each claim is subject to a $ 50 deductible. Coverage is limited to two (2) claims per Eligible Card Account per 12 month period.”

The only curious exclusion I noted is this: “Eligible Cellular Wireless Telephones that are lost or Mysterious Disappearance.”  That’s something of a bummer because I know many who have lost a phone in a taxi or an Uber.

But I have never lost a phone so I am personally unbothered by this exclusion.

Mind you, I have two phones that will fall under this protective umbrella on April 1: a presently uncovered Pixel 3 and an iPhone 8.  So I call this a good deal worth perhaps $20/monthly to me.

Add that to the PayPal credit and the annual $200 Uber credit and the card, as the cliche goes, pays for itself.  And it truly does.  

Do note that Amex Plat continues to offer a “purchase protection plan” that essentially gives you 90 days free from worry after buying something with the card.

There’s a $10,000 cap on the purchase amount.

Also still in effect is the American Express Extended Warranty Coverage which adds a year to the standard manufacturer’s warranty for most items purchased with the card. That’s useful because many warranties run just a year, so this doubles the coverage at no cost to the cardholder. Personally I have used it a couple times – with computers – and will say I was pleased with the service.

Yes, many cards offer similar extended warranty coverage – the only network without this perk is Discover, which had it but discontinued it – so the Amex plan isn’t unique. But I know from experience it does work.

Look, I understand: in many ways I too would prefer to be regularly stopping into the Centurion (and there now is one in my home airport, Phoenix, that I have yet to step into).

But I am glad to see Amex tossing new perks our way, to keep us in the ranks despite the absence of the travel perks that just about all of us signed up for Platinum to get.

Stay tuned. There will be more perks.  

And then, poof, they will vanish when most of us are back on the road again in perhaps six to 12 months.  Will we then kvetch about this absence?

I think I will when the cellphone protection times out.  What about you?

CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 139 Sundie Seefried on Cannabis Banking

 by Robert McGarvey

On July 1, Sundie Seefried, longtime CEO of Partner Colorado Credit Union, makes a huge career change. On that day she resigns the credit union job to become the CEO of Safe Harbor Financial, LLC, a Partner Colorado subsidiary formed for the purpose of handling cannabis related banking.

When Safe Harbor was created in 2015, it was a groundbreaking institution for conducting compliance based banking that would satisfy regulators.  

Safe Harbor has become a big, consuming business and, said Seefried, it’s helped put credit unions into the conversation of cannabis banking – and, increasingly, that is a conversation that is being heard as more states legalize marijuana.  Included are multiple big states: California, Washington, Michigan, and Illinois. In only a handful of states is marijuana fully illegal.

In this podcast Seefried talks about the process of validating the cash that flows through a marijuana business. She also talks about the early days of Safe Harbor – and the hostility and ridicule she faced.

Who’s laughing now?

By any measure, Sundie Seefried has emerged as the queen of cannabis banking.

What would her father, a Baptist, missionary think about this? We ask her.

Just as we ask about that uncommon first name, Sundie.  

We ask about being perceived as a maverick in a credit union industry that does not always revere its mavericks.

The one question she is asked that she doesn’t answer is the question, are there plans to take Safe Harbor public?

Her podcast with CUInsight is mentioned. Here’s a link.

Reference is made to how much it costs to open a Dairy Queen franchise – and surely you want to know how that came up.  Listen for it.

Earlier CU 2.0 cannabis related podcast guests include Paul Stull, also multiple guests on two long cannabis podcasts, episode 20 and an early unnumbered show.

Listen up. This is a fun episode.

Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email rjmcgarvey@gmail.com

And like this podcast on whatever service you use to stream it. That matters.

Find out more about CU2.0 and the digital transformation of credit unions here. It’s a journey every credit union needs to take. Pronto

The Jab, Impfneid, and the Return of Business Travel: Just Another Mirage?

by Robert McGarvey

First came the jab in my upper arm and ten days later came my startling wish that a meeting agenda I was looking at – a virtual meeting of course – was for an in person meeting.  I had not had such a thought in a year and in that year 500,000+ of us have died from Covid-19, I myself had the disease (mercifully, a milder form), and just about everything I do outside my home today is different.

But there I caught myself sniffing at the inadequacies of some virtual meeting formats and thinking that I was ready to resume in-person meetings. Thinking that was triggered by my having gotten the first Pfizer injection on Feb. 19.  

Of course I was deep into delusion.  In point of fact, just the first Pfizer shot delivers about 90% immunity after 21 days – but note I only have 10 days and also note that other studies put the immunity from one shot nearer 50%.  Note 3: I may have some additional immunity from having had the disease – but nobody knows how much or how long it lasts (and I had it about a year ago).  

I am scheduled for the second shot on March 12 and you can bet that morning is blocked off on my calendar.  

Even so, a question popped into my mind: will I start traveling come April 1 (fool’s day of course)?

The full vaccination immunity for me will kick in around then.

And are others planning likewise? Are we in fact on the cusp of a boom in travel, including business travel?

I know many in this venue are cheering on the idea of a business travel boom.  So far I have pooh-poohed the prospect but am I now changing my mind?

Not exactly.

The more I noodled the facts knowable by me, the more my initial skepticism seemed the likeliest outcome.

I started with vaccination data.  In Maricopa County, where I live, 15% of us now have gotten at least one shot.  

Only 5% of us have gotten both shots.

What’s more, there aren’t a lot of business travelers in the vaccinated population.  Those 75 and older are the most vaccinated group – 53% of them have gotten a shot.

About half of all those vaccinated in Maricopa County are 65 or older. Again, not a group known for lots of business travel.

Might these numbers fuel a boomlet in leisure travel?  Arnie Weissman, editor at Travel Weekly, thinks as much and I am coming over to that point of view. I definitely can see seniors buying cruises, flying to visit grandchildren, and probably getting busy ticking off bucket list travels. Probably in Q2 of this year.

But I don’t see younger demographics soon joining the traveling public.

They just won’t have been jabbed.

It will take until Q3 – possibly Q4 – to have vaccinated perhaps 75% of us, which probably is as high as we will go.  

It will take years – estimates go as high as seven years – to vaccinate the world.

As for the revival of business travel, certainly not before Q4. Vaccines just won’t have been jabbed into the arms.  The majority of US business travelers are 30 to 49 and, nope, that is not a demographic that is prioritized for vaccinations. They will be lucky to have been jabbed by September.

Yes, some companies have the money to put their employees at the front of the line – but right now the negative publicity that would surely trigger outweighs the benefits of vaccinated employees. Impfneid, vaccine envy, is real.  

Gartner research found that only 11% of companies have resumed business travel or plan to in the next six months. 61% of companies told Gartner they “just don’t know” when they will resume business travel.

Odds are high, too, that even when it returns, business travel will be shrunken version of its former self as organizations realize they can function, well and more profitably, without traveling much at all. That realization is not vanishing.  

Employment lawyers indicate that many organizations are – rightly – worried about legal consequences of employee travels in a Covid era, and even if the legal issues vanish (there continue to be state and federal efforts to protect organizations from Covid triggered litigation).  But the lawyers also say that, litigation aside, many employees will simply refuse to take business trips now.  Fear of the disease is high.

My advice regarding business travel remains the same: unpack.  We ain’t going anywhere anytime soon on business. I know I’m not.

With Clarity Against ID Theft: New Assessment Tool Aims to Limit Post-Breach Damage

by Robert McGarvey

Breach Clarity, a startup headed up by onetime Javelin Strategy + Research co-founder Jim Van Dyke, could help cybersecurity journalists, bloggers, and PR professionals write more clearly about data breaches.

Breaches are commonplace. There are four significant ones per day, says Van Dyke.

They often affect financial information, such as bank account or credit card data, protected health records, personally identifiable information (PII), or intellectual property.

In 2020, the total number of records exposed in reported breaches exceeded 37 billion, a 141% increase over 2019. This number doesn’t even include yet 2020 data breaches reported in Q1 2021.

But what does that mean for individual consumers and their personal data in each case? “The biggest challenge breach victims face,” says Eva Velasquez, CEO of the nonprofit Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC), “is understanding the risks associated with a particular breach, and what steps they should take next.”

Data breach press releases from lawyers, for lawyers


Ask any cybersecurity journalist what they do not like about data breach press releases of, say, financial services firms or health care providers, and the answer is: everything.

Continued at Cybersecurity Writers blog

Dubai, Flight Shaming, Breaking Out of Lockdowns, and Marketing Miscues

by Robert McGarvey

“It is nice to know that everybody’s kind of in their trackies, apart from those b*****s who went to Dubai.”

So Jake Quickenden moaned to the Manchester Evening News. He’s a Dancing on Ice winner and something of a UK celeb. The Dubai incident – where a bunch of British social media influencers and reality TV stars were treated to a junket and as they posted snaps of their holidays online, the British, indeed the global, public roared in angry resentment – has got to give anybody pause before jetting off to anyplace exotic.

Quickenden continued: “We’re all trying to get through this lockdown at the end of the day so that we can get on with our lives.

“People can rebuild their businesses, people can rebuild their relationships and their mates. We’re all trying to do that, apart from the ones who went to Dubai.”

Ouch.

This is flygskam – flight shaming – on steroids.

Know that Quickenden is just one of literally thousands of voices raised in condemnation of the skin flaunting influencers in Dubai and therefore you might think that the brands and locations that have tossed junkets to influencers might have pulled away from this marketing tactic, if not out of disgust at unnecessary travel in a pandemic but simply out of a survival instinct.

Which raises a key question: Are the brands that sponsor and host such events morally irresponsible?

The British influencers, by the way, traveled legally in that they claimed their Dubai hop was business travel and, for them, it was.

Sure, the British public, much of it, did not see the junket in the same light. But if you are earning money by showing some skin in the sun then, yes, such trips are business for you.

Legalities aside, however, the PR blowback was intense and negative. So it has seemed.

But appearances may deceive.

Indeed The Drum – an online pub that covers digital marketing – now reports that Dubai may not be forgotten but brands nonetheless are pushing forward with marketing plans built around influencers traveling abroad.

Is this nuts? Maybe not, says UK web design firm Rouge, which relates:

“we analysed the Instagram accounts of 50 popular social media stars who have been pictured abroad this Winter. And the results are somewhat surprising…

Likes per post for influencers abroad are up a staggering 144 percent compared to their average.” 

The Drum added: “The influencer marketing landscape is forecast to grow by 15% in 2021 to a whopping $5.86bn.”

The New Statesman elaborated: “Kaz Crossley, one of the Love Island stars currently in Dubai, gets 50k-60k likes per post on holiday versus nearly half that (roughly 30k likes) on posts she shares of herself in the UK. Another example is Molly Mae Hague – a Love Island 2019 runner-up… – who posts regularly to YouTube…. While her video stats vary, ranging anywhere between half a million and a million views, her travel vlogs in the pandemic have been some of her most successful ever. Her vlog from Crete this summer has 1.4 million views and a trip to Ibiza has a whopping 1.9 million; a trip to the Maldives in December has 1.3 million and – you guessed it – a vlog of her trip to Dubai that same month has 1.2 million.”

We – you and I – are drawn to this content and therefore the influencers and their sponsors are simply serving up what we apparently crave. As we are in lockdown – by government fiat in the UK, or simply by personal choice for many US travelers – we have our eyes on those who have broken out.

But a money question for the hosts and sponsors of these junkets: Yes, visits to influencer posts and content went up but did any visitor actually make any purchases? My guess is no, especially not among the core UK travelers who remain in lockdown.

Never confuse site visits with end results. I should have thought that part of the Marketing 101 class. But, evidently, it isn’t.

Just because we surf to a site doesn’t mean we are transacting.

Site visitor counts be damned, the Dubai campaign failed. Period.

If we ain’t buying tickets to fly there, or booking hotel rooms to stay, it’s one big fail.

Food Blogging for Dollars

by Robert McGarvey

You like food. You want to make money. Right there, for many, the fantasy collapses. Who can actually make a living by focusing on food? For many — millions probably — food blogging is a hobby. Then there are the growing numbers who actually write about food and earn substantial income from a mix of brand sponsorships and advertising dollars.

This has become a golden age for food bloggers especially as the pandemic and associated lockdowns have fueled surging interest in food as well as a lot more home cooking. From baking bread to seeking inventive ways to prepare chicken wings (an unexpected pandemic favorite), a hungry public has turned to the Web and social media to learn what to cook, now, and how to cook it better.

Smart food bloggers are profiting from this.

Keep reading at StartUp Savant

The Sheraton Rebirth Nobody Wanted and Nobody Has Noticed

by Robert McGarvey

Press releases flew and they carry the breathtaking message that the Sheraton brand has been reborn. Reinvented. And maybe it should have been noted reincarnated because Sheraton was a brand one could be forgiven for thinking had died.

Six Sheratons are undergoing the renovation – in Phoenix, Denver, Dubai, Tel Aviv, Guangzhou and Minyang, China.

I often walk by the Sheraton in downtown Phoenix where the work has been in progress for what seems like forever. And it isn’t finished yet.

Are you anxious for the work to be done so you can rush to stay there?

That’s doubtful.

Read the Adweek headline for its Sheraton story: Sheraton Rebrand Aims to Bring Hotel Chain ‘Up to Date’ With a Focus on Communal Spaces.

Uh, forgive me for bringing it up but hasn’t this pandemic – which has killed over 400,000 of us, will kill a few more hundreds of thousands of us before it runs its course, and will not be a memory until maybe mid 2022 – put the hex on “communal” spaces?

Flip through the photos of the new Sheraton and the furniture is too close together, the room arrangements entirely too cozy.

Here’s another shot of the lobby from the Marriott press release. Way too close for comfort in a Covid era.

Here’s a guest room and it looks, well, like many others I have seen.

Ho hum.

Trade pub Travel Weekly prattled on: “Each property has received myriad updates, including a reimagined ‘Public Square’ lobby design, which Sheraton describes as the ‘heart of the Sheraton experience.’ The new lobbies feature elements like a communal table designed to serve as a shared workspace as well as flexible, tech-enabled Studio areas, which are enclosed in glass and can be used for small meetings or private dining experiences.”

Also central to the refreshed lobby experience is the introduction of Coffee Bar Bar, a new food-and-beverage concept that is ‘part bar, part coffee bar, part market.'”

I am pretty sure it is going to take many months before many of us will welcome the hurly burly of crowded public spaces and yet that is the hook on which Marriott wants to hang its buffed up Sheraton hat.

How out of touch is that?

But that’s not the only problem. The Adweek subhead threw a dart at it: One problem: The brand doesn’t seem to have a defined audience in mind.

Exactly who wants the new Sheraton? Nobody seems to know and, very likely, the answer is nobody wants it.

The strangeness goes on. The Arizona Republic, with a focus on the downtown Sheraton Grand which has been closed since March, reported that the hotel won’t open until May. It quoted a spokesperson: “‘For a hotel the size of the Sheraton Phoenix Downtown, we are reliant on groups coming to Arizona and coming to Phoenix specifically,’ hotel spokesman Jon Erickson said of the decision to postpone the reopening date for several months.”

Uh…downtown and in particular the Convention Center area where the Sheraton Grand sits roll up and wait out the long Phoenix summer months. Group bookings are sparse until Labor Day and the ones that come are from school groups, religious groups, and, well, not big spenders. They are unlikely to flock to the Sheraton Grand unless the summer room rates hover around $100 per night because there are plenty of rooms downtown that can be had for that amount.

And for the quants among us, there are around 445 Sheraton hotels worldwide, exactly six have undergone this transformation, some 36 more are said to be on schedule to finish renovations by 2022, but there is no timetable for when the remaining 400 or so to get the facelift. You can bet that hotel asset owners, who have been through a year that is the worst in hospitality history, per STR, and 2021 won’t be much better, will not clap their hands with glee at the prospect of pouring huge sums into their Sheraton to transform it to better suit, well, we don’t know who.

Especially not when many thousands of hotels across the country are expected not to reopen even once Covid is a memory. How many that shutter will be Sheratons?

And will any tears be shed for the departed?

CU2.0 Podcast Episode 135 Joel Schwartz DoubleCheck and NSF Fees

by Robert McGarvey

 Overdraft fees are big business for most financial institutions and it’s estimated that 20% of credit union members, one in five, have an NSF annually.

The worse news is that the credit union’s NSF fee is just the start of the consumer’s pain.  Joel Schwartz, founder and co-CEO of DoubleCheck, a Los Angeles company with an innovative spin on how to best handle NSFs, estimates that the NSF can lead to perhaps $175 in ripple charges such as a returned item fee imposed by the payee of the bounced check.

Ouch.

DoubleCheck has an alternative – and, hold on you protest, your institution wants to maintain its NSF income, especially in today’s economy where loan interest rates are anemic.  

Schwartz gets that. He describes DoubleCheck as the financial equivalent of traffic school in the context of a speeding ticket.  Go to traffic school and, usually, that wipes out the pain of an increase in insurance premiums.

What DoubleCheck’s tool does is offer the consumer realtime options for dealing with the consequences of an NSF such as offering the opportunity to use a credit card to make good on the check or ACH, therefore it doesn’t look like a bounced item to the payee. Whoosh, that $175 in ripple charges may vanish.

DoubleCheck charges $20, an amount it typically splits with the credit union – so in fact the credit union income goes up.

Sounds good? It gets better. The DoubleCheck tools – which make the NSF process transparent to the consumer – may help a credit union duck class action suits that claim discriminatory processing of NSFs.   

There’s a link in the show notes to a recent Navy Federal $16 million settlement involving NSF charges.

There’s also a class action suit in progress. Link in the show notes.  

Meantime, Schwartz predicts there will be Congressional action to limit NSF charges, a topic of much interest to Senator Cory Booker. See the link in the show notes.  

DoubleCheck tools may help a credit union recoup some income that may be capped by federal action.

Mentioned in the show is SECU’s NSF policies. The charge is $12 but the member gets a two day window without charge to clear up the issue.  (Here’s a link to a podcast with Jim Blaine, the retired SECU CEO.) 

Listen up.

Like what you are hearing? Find out how you can help sponsor this podcast here. Very affordable sponsorship packages are available. Email rjmcgarvey@gmail.com

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Find out more about CU2.0 and the digital transformation of credit unions here. It’s a journey every credit union needs to take. Pronto

What’s In My Wallet Now?

Part 2

Hint: Two Surprises

By Robert McGarvey

The rethink I never saw coming continues to unfold in my wallet.  And new cards have joined the party.

Of course, for years, I have thought Amex – Platinum in particular – had the starring role in my pocket. Regular readers will recall that as I bemoaned the lack of travel related perks in the Covid era – and they have been the main attraction for Platinum – I found myself making dramatically more use of the Amazon Prime card, which delivers 5% rewards on purchases at Amazon and Whole Foods, and also Discover, which offers a rotating cast of 5% cashback rewards.  Presently it is on groceries and chain drug stores.

Amex meantime has rolled out new Plat rewards, notably a $30/monthly refund of PayPal purchases funded with the card, and there is a continuing $15/monthly credit on Uber and Uber Eats. Of course I shifted Netflix and the NY Times to PayPal and that’s a quick $30 in my pocket.

But as I feasted on different rewards I got hungry for more and new in my wallet is the Venmo Credit Card.  What’s Venmo? A cool person to person payment service owned by PayPal, Venmo moved $100 billion in 2019 and it is fantastically popular with Gen Z (people ages 6 to 24).  I signed up a few years ago because it works to send gifts to young relatives (some of whom don’t know what a paper check is).

It’s a good thing I did because I have a multi-year track record with Venmo.  And when I heard about the new Venmo credit card, I wanted one.

Right now it is open only to a limited audience, and only via the Venmo mobile app, and when I checked, I discovered I was eligible to apply. So I did.

Why? It’s fee free and it pays cashback – 3% on your largest purchase category, 2% on the next largest, 1% on everything else. I see no caps on spending amounts. (Discover, by contrast, caps a 5% category spend at $1500, meaning $75 back.)

The percentages are dynamic. They will shift as your spending shifts.

We’ll see how much I use the Venmo card but, in principle, I like it because as I spend I earn a few dollars in rewards. Sure, I know there may be cashback cards with richer rewards, but remember Venmo is on point for me, in part because I have written about it before and probably will again. It’s a company I follow.

You want one?  Download the Venmo app, from the Apple or Google app store, sign up for a new account and keep checking the app. You may see an invitation to apply.

But now I am on a roll of new cards and also in my wallet is Lili, a new mobile bank card that bills itself as the ideal card for gig economy workers (meaning me).  And one afternoon, in under three minutes, I opened the account and funded it.

Partly I did that because in my other life I talk and write a lot about credit unions in particular and financial services in general (remember my tracking Venmo) – and a continuing obstacle in the digital transformation of credit unions has been a slowness to embrace online and mobile account opening.  Often a new account means a visit to a branch and that is just so 1950.

When I saw Lili’s promise that a new account could be mine in under three minutes I had to take the plunge – and, voila, it worked.  Interested in signing up? Go here.

Lili is free and it provides a free checking account, a Visa business debit card, and expense reports that make tax filing easier.

And the Visa business debit card also is a boom to tax filing. Just use it only for tax deductible expenses and that saves time right there.

OK, by now you are probably guessing that because I no longer have any interest in counting my air miles (what miles?) I have time on my hands and I am putting it to use playing with new credit and debit cards.

I cannot dispute that.  Nor can I dispute that I now occasionally read geeky credit card advice articles on the Points Guy that I never would have spent a second on a year ago.

But, you know, saving money by using the right credit card is proving to be fun – and it is a lot easier than I had thought.  And yet I still goof with inattention. I picked up a $6 prescription at Walgreens this a.m and paid with the Amazon Prime card (1% rewards). But I should have paid with Discover and gotten this month’s 5% reward. That’s 30 cents versus 6 cents.

It adds up, my mother used to tell me, and, yes, I ignored her. But now she’d be proud of me.