If you love pictures from inside trains, then this post is for you. Today marks my first Amtrak ride and my first blog post from a train (thank you Wifi!). Here are some pictures of the Amtrak Bedroom. “Spacious” couch with views outside the window,
Starting soon, you may hear the following message when you call your credit card company: “This call may be monitored, recorded and processed for quality assurance and fraud prevention purposes.” The statement is slightly different than the usual, “This call will be monitored or recorded…” According to a CNBC article published a few hours ago (link), credit card companies (especially Chase and Wells Fargo) are investing in “voice biometric technology to screen calls for signs of fraud.”
The banks can compare the voice on the phone to previously recorded and analyzed phone calls to determine if it is actually you on the phone, rather than an identity thief impersonating you. The system is even able to recognize voices and determine if they are blacklisted for previous attempts at fraud. Continue reading
Based on the responses from my recent poll (voting still open), the Chase Ink Plus seems like this is a pretty popular topic in the voting.
I would have shared my story sooner, but right when it happened, the sign up bonus for the Chase Ink Plus Business Credit Card raised from 50,000 to 70,000 Chase Ultimate Reward Points. I’m sure you were (are?) bombarded with posts about the Chase Ink Plus and didn’t want my story to get lost in the crowd. With that said, here are the facts:
The reason I applied for the Chase Ink Plus Visa Business Credit Card was because I received a targeted letter in the mail for the 70,000 Chase Ultimate Reward Points sign up bonus. It was too good to resist, so I pulled the trigger.
I’m sure most of you are sick of hearing about Serve and their “cash advance fees” on Chase cards, but I promise this will be the last post about this issue. Last Thursday/Friday, Serve or Chase started processing online Serve reloads slightly differently than before (link). As it turned out, no cash advance fees ever posted, but the online Serve reload would decrease your cash advance available balance (link).
If you tried to use a Chase credit card with a cash advance limit smaller than your online load amount or a Chase Ink Bold business Charge Card, your online Serve reload would fail and you would get this error message.
Let me be honest, I have never been on an Amtrak train before. Living in SoCal my entire life, I have never had a need or desire to take Amtrak, but every time I go to travel conferences or do OC/SD meetups, someone always shares awesome Amtrak stories. Therefore, I decided to break my 24 year streak of no Amtrak rides and book one of Amtrak’s premier routes, the Coast Starlight (link), from Seattle down to Los Angeles. The journey takes 35-36 hours non-stop on a train. Before you think I am crazy, let me explain…
The Coast Starlight leaves Seattle everyday at 9:30am and arrived in Los Angeles 9pm the following night. Here is the map and list of cities where the train stops (probably for just a few minutes):
