Credit Card Companies Overreach On Foreign Transaction Fees

Chris Elliott points out in his blog today that credit card companies are taking advantage of a new legal loophole to charge foreign transaction fees when you buy things from foreign companies in the United States. Like, say, airline tickets bought in U.S. dollars from a foreign airline. So bogus! Read the blog for Chris’ excellent explanation.

Ryanair Charging For Toilet Use: Really Not Kidding?

I am still having a hard time believing that Ryanair intends to go through with a plan to rip out two of the three toilets in each of its 737s and charge to use the remaining one.

But CEO Michael O’Leary insists that it is true.  Even so, Ben Mutzabaugh at USA Today’s Today in the Sky blog believes there’s at least a little room to disbelieve O’Leary. He wraps up some of O’Leary’s other recent pronouncements, including the possibility of charging for air-sickness bags and requiring passengers to load their own luggage.

As this set of quotes from an interview with O’Leary suggests, he’s a very entertaining man in an angry Don Rickles kind of way. He’s also a jerk, so much so that I wouldn’t want to deal with him or his company in any capacity.

As for the bathrooms, airlines should be required to provide them without extra charge in the name of simple human decency. It would be ridiculous to have to make that a law, but what else can you do when public outrage is part of a company’s business plan?