OCTOBER 19, 2020

BY   Joseph Olaoluwa

Following the ongoing protests against police brutality in the country, airfares on domestic routes have increased.

The increase in the price regime was reflected by several carriers on weekend flights for one-way trips from Lagos to Abuja.

Before now, the cost of flights ranged from N27,000 to N38,000 depending on the class of ticket purchased.

However, Arik Air recorded N43, 944 for economy and N99,176 for business class tickets on Sunday, according to checks by our correspondent.

For Aero contractors, passengers were expected to cough out between N34,310 and N87,812 for flexible economy and business class respectively.

Dana Air was not left out as it prices ranged for N36,000 to N42,300 for economy Saver while Economy Flexible stood at 47,000.

Prices on Air Peace ranged from N38,800 to N60,000 for economy flexi while it recorded N80,000 for business for flights on October Sunday.

A potential passenger who identified himself simply as Wilson who sought a flight to Abuja told the PUNCH that the increase in airfares would make him settle for a bus instead.

He said, “I will rather take a bus to Abuja, seeing the increase in flight tickets.”

Operators, however, argued that the price increase was not as a result of the ongoing protests which have been the cause of gridlock across major highways in the country.

Speaking in a telephone interview, spokesperson for Dana Air, Kingsley Ezenwa, said the increase in fares was not related to the planned protest.

He said, “We are always saying book early to get the best fares. We also have a progressive fare regime, whereas the flights are getting full, the fares will be increasing gradually. That is not to say there was a deliberate fare increase over the weekend. This is normal industry metrics.”

Spokesperson of Air Peace, Stanley Olisa, said, “That is our fare. The fares differ. It was not increased because of anything. Nothing must has influenced it.”

Aviation analyst, Olumide Ohunayo, said the spike in fares over the weekend could be linked to an increase in demand in terms of flight activities.

OCTOBER 19, 2020

BY  Sodiq Oyeleke with agency report

Some Nigerians living in Australia have protested against police brutality and bad governance in their country.

During the protest at the Nigerian High Commission, they complained about the extra-judicial killings in Nigeria.

In several video clips that surfaced online, the protesters held placards showing their support for the ongoing #EndSARS protest in Nigeria.

Some of the protesters were seen chanting “End SARS” repeatedly.

One of the protesters said, “Some of us here have lost brothers, we have lost cousins. Some of us are survivors. We are survivors of police brutality.

“You go about in Nigeria; you can’t even go about your daily duties. Why would we be governed by people who are charlatans in power?

“Why would we be governed by people who do not apply rural decency? Why would we allow injustice to thrive on our street?”

The #EndSARS protests were initially to stop police brutality in Nigeria but have snowballed into a fight against bad governance in the country.

The protesters at inception came with five demands, including the release of all arrested protesters and justice for deceased victims of SARS, compensation to their families.

They equally demanded that there should be an independent committee to oversee the investigations and prosecution of any member of SARS found guilty of extrajudicial killings.

They demanded that all personnel of the disbanded SARS undergo a psychological and medical evaluation as well as retraining before they should be redeployed to other services of the police.

The protesters also demanded that the salary of the police should be increased in a manner that they will be adequately compensated for protecting the lives and property of citizens.

In meeting the demands of the protesters, on October 11, the Inspector-General of Police, Muhammed Adamu, dissolved SARS.

On October 12, the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), said the disbanding of SARS was a first step in the comprehensive reform of the police.

On October 13, the IGP ordered all defunct SARS personnel to report at Force Headquarters in Abuja for debriefing as well as psychological and mental examinations.

On the same day, the Presidential Panel on the Reform of SARS accepted the five-point demand of the protesters.

The National Economic Council presided over by the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo with the 36 state governors and FCT Minister as members met on October 15 and directed the immediate establishment of state-based Judicial Panels of Enquiry across the country.

The NEC also directed governors to immediately establish state-based special security and human rights committee to be chaired by the governor in each state.

OCTOBER 19, 2020

BY  Oliver Gill

Cruises will be safer than stepping on to an aircraft or staying in a hotel room under new rules designed to restart sailings, according industry leaders.

Operators such as Fred Olsen and Saga have drawn up new protocols that they hope will convince ministers to give British departures the green light in the New Year. The Government is continuing to advise against cruise ship travel despite countries on the Continent relaxing their guidance.

Bob Sanguinetti, the chief executive of the UK Chamber of Shipping, said: “We are asking the Government to consider this sooner rather than later.

“Cruising is going to be one of the safest modes of travel and tourism because with these protocols in place and the extra measure that we are going to take, they will have a much closer oversight of their passengers when they embark than at a hotel when a client walks into the lobby. Likewise when a passenger steps on to an aircraft.”

Mr Sanguinetti explained that part of the protocols include charter jets being on standby in case of a major emergency. However, he hoped the measures operators intended to have before departure would negate them ever being required.

They would also allow cruise-goers to enjoy their time on board, he added.

He said: “With the precautions we are taking and the space that we have, you can create safe bubbles. You can create cohorts within the cruise that allows things like social distancing rules to be maintained.

“From a UK perspective, there is no one that is advertising for cruises over the next two to three months. Those operators have taken the pragmatic approach to shift their sights onto the New Year.”

OCTOBER 19, 2020

Although Canada and the U.S. have agreed to close their shared land border to non-essential travel, they don't appear to agree on several related issues — including what to do next. 

More than seven months after the border closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Donald Trump have offered up contradictory messages about the border's future.

The Canada-U.S. border closure agreement was set to expire on Oct. 21, but the Canadian government announced on Monday that the closure will be extended until at least Nov. 21. 

In an interview last Wednesday on Winnipeg podcast The Start, Trudeau said Canada plans to keep the border closed as long as COVID-19 case counts in the U.S. remain high. 

"We keep extending the border closures because the United States is not in a place where we would feel comfortable reopening those borders," he said.

Four weeks prior, Trump offered a different prognosis for the Canada-U.S. border closure.

"We're looking at the border with Canada — Canada would like it open," he said at the White House on Sept. 18.

"So we're gonna be opening the borders pretty soon.... We want to get back to normal business."

Foreign affairs expert Edward Alden said the disconnect between the two leaders suggests there are currently no joint discussions about an eventual reopening plan. 

"With the Trudeau government saying, 'No, don't open' ... and President Trump saying, 'Oh, I think we'll reopen sometime soon,' that's no grounds for a serious government-to-government negotiation," said Alden, a professor of U.S.-Canada economic relations at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Wash.

Even though many Canadians support the border closure, which took effect in late March, it has devastated the tourism industry, separated loved ones and hurt border communities in both Canada and the U.S. 

Alden said he understands why the border is closed for now, but that it's important to start laying the groundwork for a reopening plan.

"The problem of not having those negotiations is, when do we possibly have a sense of when it will be safe to reopen the border?"

CBC News asked both the Canadian and U.S. governments about the fate of the border closure and got disparate answers. 

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said the two countries are exploring the loosening of some restrictions. The department's acting secretary, Chad Wolf, echoed this sentiment in a tweet on Monday.

"We are working closely with ... Canada to identify safe criteria to ease the restrictions in the future and support our border communities," he wrote.

But a spokesperson for Bill Blair — Canada's public safety minister — offered a less definitive statement on the next steps. 

"We will continue to evaluate the best public health information available to us to make a decision on when and how to reopen our border," the spokesperson said in an email. 

"This decision will be made in Canada."

According to Reuters — which spoke with well-placed Washington and Ottawa sources last month — the U.S. had floated the idea of relaxing some border restrictions, but Canadian officials showed little enthusiasm.

Canadians advised not to go to U.S.

In another disconnect between the two countries, Trudeau is warning Canadians not to fly to the U.S., while the U.S. is welcoming Canadian air passengers.

Although the U.S. agreed to close its shared land border with Canada, it still allows Canadians to fly to the country for leisure travel. The U.S. government declined to explain why it made this decision. 

Conversely, Canada won't allow Americans to enter for non-essential travel by any mode of transport unless they get a special exemption. 

CBC News recently reported on some Canadian snowbirds planning to fly to Florida this winter — because they can. 

When asked about Canadians — including snowbirds — flying to the U.S., Trudeau said in the podcast interview that they should stay home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

"People have to recognize that they're putting themselves at risk, they're putting their loved ones at risk." he said. "The recommendation is to avoid non-essential travel, and that's for people's own safety."

Case numbers down in sun states

Trudeau and Trump also disagree on the COVID-19 status of some of the U.S. sun destinations Canadians might be tempted to visit this winter.  

"I know there's a lot of people very worried about what's happening south of the border in Florida and Arizona and California and other places where the virus is not under control — far less under control than we are here," Trudeau said in the interview.

However, when Trump suggested the border would soon reopen, he said that Florida and Arizona are "doing very well."

According to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, new daily COVID-19 case numbers in Arizona, Florida and California have declined dramatically since their worrisome peaks in the summer. However, the infection rates in these states and across much of the U.S. remain at concerning levels.

Trump made a point of highlighting Canada's recent surge in cases in a speech last week.

"All over the world you see big flare-ups," he told a crowd of supporters. "Big flare-ups in Canada."

OCTOBER 20, 2020

The airline cancelled Flight 248 from Atlanta, United States, to Lagos, Nigeria, and Flight 249 from Lagos to Atlanta scheduled for Tuesday night (today) and also Wednesday evening due to the tension caused by demonstration in the country.

BY SAHARAREPORTERS, NEW YORKOCT 20, 2020

Delta Airlines has cancelled two more flights earlier scheduled to come in and go out of Nigeria as a result of the ongoing #EndSARS protests in the country.

The airline cancelled Flight 248 from Atlanta, United States, to Lagos, Nigeria, and Flight 249 from Lagos to Atlanta scheduled for Tuesday night (today) and also Wednesday evening due to the tension caused by demonstration in the country.

Earlier, SaharaReporters revealed that Delta Airlines Flight 54 from Atlanta to Lagos was forced to return to America after first terminating its journey in Dakar, Senegal, with the entire crew and passengers on board.

Young people across Nigeria are calling for police reforms and improved governance but the peaceful exercise has now been overtaken by armed gangs attacking innocent civilians and wreaking havoc all over the place.

State governments have been forced to adopt various measures including the imposing of indefinite curfew to arrest the situation.

OCTOBER 21, 2020

OTTAWA (Reuters) - The Canadian government is very aware of the challenges facing airlines and the travel sector during the coronavirus pandemic and is working on possible aid, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said on Tuesday.

Freeland said she had spoken to the heads of Canada’s major airlines and unions last week but did not give details. Carriers and travel industry executives have repeatedly urged Ottawa for assistance as passenger numbers slump.

“We are obviously aware of the particular challenges that the travel sector, the airlines are facing right now,” she told a news conference when asked about an aid package.

“It’s definitely an issue we are looking at closely and working on,” she said.

Airlines have already received more than C$1 billion ($763 million) from a wage subsidy program that Ottawa introduced to help businesses deal with the pandemic, she said.

Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc told CTV on Sunday that Ottawa might take a stake in major airlines such as Air Canada and WestJet Airlines. Both carriers have suspended dozens of routes.

The Canadian branch of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers on Tuesday urged Freeland to consider partially or fully nationalizing Air Canada.

Earlier this month major labor unions said the aviation sector would suffer permanent damage unless Ottawa provided a C$7 billion 10-year low-interest loan to offset the effects of the pandemic.

($1=1.3113 Canadian dollars)

OCTOBER 21, 2020

The urge to escape covid-19 has given it a boost

FOR THE industry’s critics, it is a scandal that exposes exactly what they have been warning about. Many people have an almost instinctive distaste for the business in selling long-term-residence rights in a country or even citizenship there for cash, usually in the form of an authorised investment. So a documentary this month on Al Jazeera, a Qatar-based television channel, seeming to uncover corruption in an “investment migration” scheme offered by Cyprus, did not not seem especially shocking. It showed Cypriot politicians filmed in a sting operation, apparently willing to sell their country’s passport to a (fictitious) Chinese businessman who, in the cover story, had been convicted to seven years in jail for money-laundering, and so should have been ineligible.

For the industry’s practitioners—the consultants, accountants, bankers, wealth managers, lawyers and government departments selling their country’s charms—this is a blow. Although the politicians involved have protested their innocence, Cyprus has suspended its “golden passport” scheme from November 1st. European Union officials in Brussels and members of the European Parliament were already hostile to such schemes. And in response to the latest scandal, the European Commission has begun legal action (“infringement procedures”) to investigate both Cyprus’s scheme and one offered by Malta. It is an extremely sensitive issue for the EU. On the one hand, no issue is more jealousy guarded as a “national” competence than whom a country allows to be a citizen. On the other hand, a passport from an EU member confers the right to live and work anywhere in the EU; and a “Schengen” visa allows free travel to 22 EU members and four other countries.

Defenders of the schemes insist that criminals seeking a bolthole are the exception, and that they are making great strides in imposing stricter “due diligence” standards. The vast majority of their customers, they argue, are honest, respectable people with a legitimate hankering after an alternative to the passport and residence rights they acquired by the lottery of birth. The loss of Cyprus restricts their options. But there are plenty of others, and demand is booming, despite the huge decline in global mobility brought by the pandemic. Indeed, covid-19 has spurred interest in investment migration.

“The industry is not merely robust in turbulence,” says Christian Nesheim, editor of Investment Migration Insider, a trade journal, “it thrives on it.” Indeed it really took off partly as a response to the global financial crisis of 2007-08. Like so many other businesses, it ground to a halt in the early days of the pandemic, as travel became impossible for much of the world and governments stopped processing paperwork. But since then it has enjoyed “more demand than we have ever seen”, in the words of Paddy Blewer of Henley & Partners, which advises both individuals seeking new residence or citizenship and governments designing programmes for them. People in countries with high infection rates and creaking health services began to see that as a reason to move elsewhere. And people with passports that had previously found themselves able to travel the world more or less unimpeded found their countries on banned or quarantine lists. At the beginning of the year, for example, according to Henley’s research, an American passport entitled its holder to travel to 185 countries without first securing a visa. That number has since shrunk to fewer than 75.

Around the world, nearly 100 countries offer a “residence by investment” programme, including many of the world’s richest countries, such as America, Australia, Britain and New Zealand. Only a dozen or so countries offer citizenship—including five Caribbean island-states (Antigua and Barbuda, Dominic, Grenada, St Kitts and St Lucia), a Pacific one (Vanuatu), Jordan, Turkey and, within the European Union, Austria, Bulgaria and Malta (as well as, until the end of the month, Cyprus). The citizenship or residence by investment (CRBI) business traces its ancestry to a law passed in 1984 in tiny St Kitts and Nevis, offering citizenship to foreigners who made a “substantial” investment. How substantial varies from country to country. In Cyprus's case at least €2m ($2.3m) in investment, usually in property, is required. Malta demands a “donation” of €650,000 to a government fund, €150,000 invested in government bonds and a property purchase or long-term lease. Research this subject online, and you will soon be seeing advertisements offering a choice of Caribbean citizenships “from $150,000”.

Al Jazeera’s choice of a Chinese applicant made sense, China is by far the biggest market for most CRBI schemes. Much the most popular destination for Chinese investment migrants is America. But the waiting-list for Chinese applicants to America’s “EB-5” long-term visa programme is 10-15 years. The EU is a good second choice. The commonest reason Chinese people want residence elsewhere is education. Parents want to spare their offspring the gruelling university-entrance exam, the gaokao. And they believe that a foreign education will open up opportunities unavailable at home. Even childless Chinese also see the attractions of a “plan B” should they find the political or economic climate in China inhospitable.

China’s success in containing the virus and the deterioration in its relations with America and some other countries have done nothing, apparently, to dent demand this year. A worsening climate of repression continues to make the option of an alternative residence abroad seem desirable. That is especially true in Hong Kong since the imposition in June of a draconian national-security law. In fact, many Hong Kong residents already have a second potential home. In the 1980s and 1990s, as the handover from British to Chinese sovereignty in 1997 loomed, Hong Kong was a big driver of the growth of the CRBI industry.

Bruno L’ecuyer, chief executive of the Investment Migration Council, an industry lobbying group, says demand is also increasing during the pandemic in other big markets such as India and Russia. And the Middle East seems to be behind the rapid growth in Turkey’s citizenship by investment programme, which granted 4,000 passports between March and May. Worldwide, says Mr L’ecuyer, the business is “slowly becoming more mainstream”. It is no longer just for the “ultra” and “very high net-worth” individuals. These days, it seems, merely very rich will do.

What has been new during the pandemic is burgeoning interest from countries previously seen as destinations rather than sources of investment migration, such as Britain, and, in particular, America, which has, as Mr Nesheim points out, far more very rich people than any other country. In Britain, interest in second passports or residences has been increasing ever since the country voted for Brexit in 2016. In America, the election of Donald Trump that year had a similar effect. In both countries, the pandemic has accelerated the trend. Henley reports an increase of 238% in inquiries from Americans in the first nine months of this year compared with the same period in 2019, though they still make up only a small percentage of the global business’s overall numbers.

Indeed, those numbers themselves are fairly small—about 5,000 passports a year, and several times that number of long-term resident’s visas. And the industry likes to point to the good done with the large sums of money raised from investors—facilitating the rebuilding of Dominica after Hurricane Maria in late 2017, for example; or Cyprus's recovery from the financial crisis. In Dominica the citizenship by investment programme was forecast by the government to make up 51% of recurrent government revenue and 25% of GDP this year. Doubtless, as minds turn to the cost of recovery from the pandemic, many governments will find investment migration’s attractions hard to resist. The industry is confident Cyprus’s scheme will be back.

Clarification (October 20th 2020): This article has been updated to include the European Commission's legal action against Cyprus and Malta.

OCTOBER 21, 2020

By Benjamin Katz

Boeing Co. BA, -2.02% is gauging interest again in a new commercial aircraft, according to people familiar with the matter, a move that could help it make up lost ground to rival Airbus SE AIR, -4.30% as it navigates its way through the 737 MAX crisis and the coronavirus pandemic.

The plane maker has held conversations with a few customers, including airplane leasing companies, and suppliers about potential interest in a single-aisle aircraft with improved engines that could carry between 200 and 250 passengers, according to these people. That would fall between Boeing’s largest 737 MAX and its twin-aisle 787 Dreamliner.

Talks about a potential new aircraft are at a very early stage, these people said, and may not lead to an eventual formal development program. A new plane can take years to move from an idea to a fully supported development program, and then even longer to make it to production. Boeing hasn’t launched a new commercial aircraft since the Dreamliner in 2004. It delivered the first of those planes in 2011.

Boeing had hoped to fill the market gap between the MAX and the Dreamliner with what it had tentatively called the NMA, for new midmarket airplane, before dropping that program amid the MAX crisis. The NMA was envisioned as a small, twin-aisle aircraft that would have been designed to match the economics of a narrow body.

OCTOBER 21, 2020

The cancelation of scheduled flights from the airport followed the unexpected imposition of a 24-hour curfew.

By Bassey Udo
  

Hundreds of passengers who were scheduled to travel from the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, to various destinations across the country on Tuesday were stranded as operating airlines announced the cancelation of flights.

The cancelation of scheduled flights from the airport followed the unexpected imposition of a 24-hour curfew by the Lagos State government.

The curfew announced by the state governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, followed the escalation of the protests around the state, as the #EndSARS protest by youth appeared to have been hijacked by hoodlums.

Confrontation between the hoodlums and security operatives in some parts of the state degenerated into coordinated attacks on some police stations.

The state government imposed curfew in all parts of the state from 4 p.m. on Tuesday.

During the period of the curfew, the governor said nobody, except essential service providers and first responders, should be found on the streets

Following the announcement, there was stampede and confusion in the state, as residents made frantic efforts to hurry home to beat the deadline for the curfew to commence.

At the airport, all outbound flights scheduled to depart after 4 p.m. on Tuesday from Lagos to all parts of the country were immediately cancelled by their respective airlines.

Some of the passengers billed to travel with the affected flights, who were already at the airport when news of the imposition of the curfew broke, were stranded, as there were no visible alternatives available.

The situation is also affecting the flight schedules for Wednesday, as all airlines late on Tuesday announced the cancellation of those flights.

One of those cancellations was by the management of Air Peace, which expressed regrets over the development.

“Dear Esteemed Passenger, we apologise for the disruption to your travel which is due to CURFEW. Your flight 7130 LAGOS to ABUJA for tomorrow 21ST October, 2020 will NO LONGER OPERATE.

“Air Peace regrets this unforeseen cancellation, but remains absolutely focused on passenger safety as well as on-time departures.”

OCTOBER 21, 2020

by Nora Dunn 

 Photo by Ted Campbell.

Between debit cards, credit cards, traveler’s checks, and other travel-centric financial products, you have a few options for carrying and spending your money while traveling abroad. And although most companies have (often obscene) relatively transparent fee structures, currency conversion rates are another story. In this article, you will find much of the information you require to effectively manage your money abroad and to maximize currency conversion rates in your favor.

The underlying theme for managing your money abroad is to be proactive about calling your financial institutions before you depart and to find out exactly what charges apply in the various scenarios you anticipate finding yourself in. Below are some guidelines for various financial products and what you need to be aware of.

Debit Cards, ATMs, and Currency Conversion Abroad

There are three fees to watch out for when using an ATM in a foreign country:

Your bank’s foreign ATM fee: If your financial institution doesn’t have a branch where you are traveling, you’ll be at the mercy of an ATM belonging to a private company or other financial institution. In this case, your bank will probably charge a per-transaction fee for using the Interac/Plus system (for example) to access your funds.

The foreign ATM’s fee: Many foreign banks and almost all private ATMs will charge a fee of their own for your use of their ATM machines.

Currency Conversion fees: To add insult to injury, you can additionally be hit with a currency conversion fee; usually charged by your home bank and expressed as a higher-than-market rate (the bank pockets the extra few cents on each dollar). It is often minimal in comparison to other currency conversion fees (e.g.: those charged by credit card companies) but is still worth investigating and tracking.

Here are some tips for managing the use of ATMs and your debit card while traveling:

• Call your home bank to find out what their foreign ATM and currency conversion fees are.
• In preparation for your trip, write down your bank’s contact information and fee structure so you can contact them if there is a discrepancy.
• You may wish to open an account specifically with an institution that has branches abroad, as you could reduce expensive foreign ATM and currency conversion fees. The more exotic your destination is, however, the lower the chance is that your bank will be there.
• Sign up for online banking and regularly check transactions on your account to ensure all charges are as expected and no fraudulent activity is happening. (Online banking privileges will also help you to manage expenses and bills from the road).
• When you need to use an ATM, withdraw larger amounts to pay fewer fees. Unless the currency in your country of travel is fluctuating wildly, don’t try to play the rates to your advantage; the per-withdrawal ATM fees (which often involve a double-whammy from the foreign bank as well as your local bank) will usually outweigh the currency conversion fees.
• Some banks charge nothing for debit purchases (as opposed to ATM cash withdrawals), and the vendor may allow you to take extra cash out as part of your purchase transaction. This may be a way to access your cash without paying the hefty ATM fees.
• For extra security, don’t leave all your cash in the account attached to your debit card. If it is stolen, you don’t want your robbers to have access to all your coffers. Instead, leave only the minimum balance required to reduce any of your bank’s fees (often a $1,000 balance will negate monthly fees), and transfer money in from a separate online account when needed.

Credit Cards and Currency Conversion Abroad

Credit cards are one of my favorite ways to pay for expenses abroad since they provide me a record of purchases, I avoid the per-transaction ATM and debit charges, I don’t have to carry large amounts of cash on my person, and depending on where I travel, just about everybody takes Visa. In addition, if the card is stolen and fraudulent purchases are made, I am usually not liable to pay for them (if instead my debit card is stolen, I have little recourse for fraudulent ATM withdrawals).

Traveling with a credit card is also something of a necessary evil since it is required to reserve accommodations, book plane tickets, place security deposits on rental cars, and make most online purchases. And if you travel with the right card, your consistent use of it might even pay for your next flight.

But the credit card companies still have a few tricks up their sleeve in the realm of currency conversion rates. Here is what you need to know, and how best to manage your credit card abroad:

• Research your credit card of choice thoroughly, as the currency conversion fees vary widely – as much as 10% – between the best and worst cards.
• Some merchants will charge an extra percentage for using a credit card. Be sure to ask about these fees, as they can tack on an additional 10% to your purchase.
• Use your credit card judiciously, as unsuspecting credit card users are targets for fraud. If you enter a PIN code, protect it from being seen; and if you sign for your purchases, watch the vendor to ensure they aren’t double-swiping or otherwise taking down your information for later use.
• Advise your credit card company of your travel plans in advance of your departure. Otherwise, purchases made from a foreign location may trigger their system’s fraud mechanism and the card could be frozen – even if the purchaser is you. (This is a common occurrence, sometimes even when preemptive calls are made. The more specific you are in your advisories, the less this will happen).
• When a merchant offers to charge you in your home currency for the purchase, it is usually best to decline, since they often use a higher-than-market currency conversion rate, and it doesn’t necessarily negate your credit card’s foreign currency fees. In the end, such a transaction could cost you up to an additional 6% overcharging the expense in the local currency and allowing your credit card to do the conversion.
• Do not insert your credit card into pay-phones for long distance calls! Not once but twice have I been desperate/dumb enough to do this (I was in a pickle at an overseas airport both times), and I paid up to $150 for five minutes of conversation.

To get an idea of the scope and variety of credit card fees, please refer to this comparison of credit cards with no foreign transaction fees. There are plenty of sites that compare credit card features in general but you should always investigate their overseas transaction fees on currency conversion to get the most for your money.

Cash Currency Conversion Abroad

Rarely will travelers (especially long-term travelers) carry enough cash to get them through an entire trip. However, having some cash on hand is always a good idea. Here are a few tips for managing your cash abroad:

• Don’t convert your cash at the airport, as the booths there don’t offer favorable currency conversion rates. Instead, find a local bank or currency conversion booth away from the airport.
• Beware of locals who offer to change your money for you; they’re getting something for playing the middle-man, and you’re the one paying for it.
• When negotiating a purchase, be sure to ask if they offer a discount if you pay cash (even if you always planned on paying with cash). Often if the vendor knows they are getting cash, they will be more flexible with price.

Financial Travel Products

TravelMoney Cards—Perform a search for “Visa TravelMoney Card”, and you will find a number of providers (American Express also offers similar services). They are pre-paid “credit” cards that you can use anywhere Visa (or Amex) is accepted. Here are the details:

• You pre-load the card directly from your bank account. You can do this continually throughout your trip if you wish, sometimes with a reload fee.
• Zero fraud liability.
• Money management tools, both online and via the mobile app for some cards.
• The card is not linked to your bank account or credit rating (and is protected by signature and PIN), thus offering security if it is stolen or lost.
• You are subject to prevailing currency conversion rates on the day of each purchase with the card, plus an additional charge of up to 3-7% transaction fee.
• Expect to pay a monthly fee of around US$5-10.
• Keep your eyes peeled for additional activation, re-load, or initial card purchase fees, e.g. a 2% reload fee.
• Use of ATMs involves the standard set of fees.
• You will be subject to minimum amounts.
• Beware of cash-out fees if you don’t use all your money and don’t plan to keep the card after your trip.

Applications and Tips for Managing Currency Conversion Rates Abroad Tip: For those of us traveling without high technology, you can perform currency conversion calculations on the fly with a small calculator. Before you go, write down the currency conversion rate on a piece of paper and tape it to your calculator. This makes bargaining in marketplaces and performing other on-the-move calculations a breeze. It is, however, impractical in a fluctuating currency exchange environment. Applications: Smart-phone users have the use of handy travel applications and WiFi connections to access the latest currency conversion rates. Web Currency Conversion Widgets: There are many such tools on the web. Choose your favorite.