[speaker001:] do you use credit cards
[speaker002:] convenience uh
[speaker001:] it
[speaker002:] I I use them for just uh everything mostly I confine my credit card to just one MasterCard
[speaker001:] do you
[speaker002:] but um I I carry it with me and clutch it tightly to my bosom at all times fortunately um uh I have a credit card well I have a two MasterCards one uh has a twenty dollar it's a gold MasterCard and it uh have to pay a twenty dollar annual fee but as long as I I pay off every month
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] there's no interest charge
[speaker001:] I see
[speaker002:] but and we never carry over we pay off every month
[speaker001:] what is the advantage then of a gold card because um you don't pay any interest if you have a regular MasterCard or Visa
[speaker002:] well one thing is whenever we rent a car we don't have to pay um any extra insurance so that we uh my husband's uh family lives in New Hampshire and uh it's about ninety miles from Hartford and ninety miles to Boston so uh as a general rule when he goes up there he rents a car so the times of the year that he rents a car more than pays the twenty dollar annual fee for having a gold card
[speaker001:] I see I see we used to get the American Express card and stuff like that and then we just kind of got back to plain old MasterCard and Visa uh because we never really had any um benefit that we thought was worth the the price of the special card so
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] uh it may change you know if we do a lot of car rental which we don't do
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] or other types of services I'm sure there're some things that come along with the gold cards that are appealing and and uh I've just wondered what they were they haven't been appealing to us so far
[speaker002:] no uh unless there's some no I there's no uh unless there's some advantage there's not any point there's there's no prestige factor involved
[speaker001:] yeah that you know I think that was my original appeal uh I was I was in my twenties and the American Express card really appeals to people on that basis of of you know you've arrived you've got this card
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] and uh you know it got to what fifty five dollars a year or something like that and my wife said well this is ridiculous why are we doing this and uh
[speaker002:] oh dear yeah
[speaker001:] so we stopped doing it and we refused to pay I don't know whether you know this but my wife discovered this we started to refuse to pay our banks uh an annual fee for the that for the Visa Visa and MasterCard and they said fine we'll give it to you anyway
[speaker002:] um-hum yeah uh-huh
[speaker001:] and we said you know
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] we're uh we're not interested in your card anymore and they said well wait a minute is is it the price and we said yeah so well we won't charge anymore you know and they used to charge what eighteen dollars a year or something like that twelve dollars something like that
[speaker002:] yeah uh-huh uh-huh yeah uh-huh
[speaker001:] so they're wonderful I mean I think credit cards are great we use it to get cash uh you know you can use it now in the Safeway out here in San Francisco and
[speaker002:] um
[speaker001:] it's wonderful in that respect and we're glad to have them we we
[speaker002:] can can you buy groceries with it
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] uh-huh yeah
[speaker001:] it's great you know and it eventually what we're gonna go to is nothing but these kinds of cards and it'll be MasterCard Visa and and American Express I don't think the Discover card's gonna make it in the long term
[speaker002:] um-hum um-hum
[speaker001:] um you know we don't need too many cards and and the American Express will probably survive but it'll have to become more like these other ones and become cheaper I think because the price will come down
[speaker002:] yeah I think so too
[speaker001:] I don't think it's worth fifty five bucks a year
[speaker002:] no it's not
[speaker001:] when you can use the the Visa or the MasterCard everywhere in the world and they're pitching that in all their commercials I notice
[speaker002:] yeah you really can and uh also um we travel abroad some and um it um you get MasterCard's accepted everywhere and and you get the
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] a a good rate you get a better rate than you do uh cashing in traveler's checks of course there are
[speaker001:] yeah well now now that's interesting I can see why because then they get some sort of advantage in terms of the conversion fee probably
[speaker002:] yeah and and even uh converting your traveler's checks at a bank they still charge you a fee
[speaker001:] right
[speaker002:] and uh
[speaker001:] well it it's gonna come that way and the reason it's nice is because basically what it does is put you electronically in touch with your financial resources anywhere in the world and that's where we're headed the technology supports that nicely and uh it makes more sense than than that because you have a card and if you have insurance which we have had on the card you uh can have you can lose it stolen
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] and you don't get uh anything charged to you and that's great it's just insurance we're very responsible with our cards but nonetheless if we lost them
[speaker002:] yeah um-hum um-hum yeah
[speaker001:] it'd be great to know we didn't have to pay five hundred dollars or whatever
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] um on the cards we look for the low rate we have USAA cards uh you know USAA
[speaker002:] yeah we do too
[speaker001:] yeah but but USAA is Dallas based and uh that's a great thing for