2 Big Secrets Most Travel Credit Cards Are Hiding from You

What Your Travel Credit Cards Are Not Telling You

You can be paying a $700 Annual Fee for American Express Platinum, $250 for Amex Gold, $400 for TD, CIBC, RBC Visa Infinite Privilege (and many others), but what they don’t want you to know is that you will get dinged with 2.5% foreign currency transaction fee and some of these even don’t provide free lounge access.

For example, American Express Gold has a hefty $250 annual fee, but it even doesn’t provide free global lounge access. On paper, it looks like there are 4 free Plaza Premium Lounge Passes, but these free lounge passes are only applicable to Canadian airports.

The most important travel credit card feature all these cards don’t provide and are actually hiding from you is the foreign transaction fee. Every time you make a purchase in something other than Canadian currency, you will get charged a 2.5 percent foreign transaction (FX) fee.

However, there is one card with only a $140 annual fee that gives you both zero foreign currency transaction fees and 6 free global lounge accesses. Scotia Passport Visa Infinite is the only travel credit card on the Canadian market that offers both free global lounge access and zero foreign currency FX fees.

If you are reading this from another country, look for a travel credit card that offers zero foreign currency transaction fees and free global lounge access. These features should be the gold standard of any premium travel credit cards.

To view this article in video format, please visit this link: Secrets Travel Credit Cards Hiding From You

American Express Gold Canada Review (Non-Affiliated Real Review)

AmEx Gold Canada Review | Non-Affiliated & Unbiased Review

American Express Gold Canada is a popular travel credit card giving some travel perks and features to Canadians. AmEx Gold has a $250 annual fee (1st supplementary card is free), but there is an annual $100 travel credit when you book travel through American Rxpress website, making it $150 per year.

American Express Gold Canada offers most travel insurance you would expect from a premium credit card, including trip cancellation insurance, which many other premium Amex cards do not offer.

AmEx Gold Canada offers many perks and features, but 3 big features the AmEx Gold Canada card is missing are concierge service, no foreign transaction fee, and global lounge access free passes. Although, AmEx Gold Canada provides 4 Canadian Plaza Premium Lounge passes and a complimentary Priority Pass membership, but not free passes.

A distinctive feature AmEx Gold Canada has is that it’s made of metal, not plastic. 13 grams of stainless steel feels good in your hands and cold to the touch. Although the supplementary card is plastic, not metal. I ordered a supplementary card thinking it would be metal too but was disappointed when I found out it was plastic.

 American Express Gold Canada also provides 24-hour Travel Emergency Assistance, to help in finding hospitals, embassies, doctors and lawyers around the world. This service also provides you with key travel information, including details on visa and inoculation requirements, and much more.

Travel Emergency Assistance is specific to AmEx Gold Canada (and Platinum) and many other premium Amex cards, such as AmEx Cobalt or Marriott Bonvoy, do not offer this service.

Please visit this link to watch my American Express Gold Canada Review in video format.

NordVPN: First Impressions, Review, and Why Do I Need A VPN

NordVPN: My First Impressions and Some Thoughts

I was never too worried about protecting myself with a VPN. A VPN is an encrypted connection tunnel between your devices and the internet that secures your internet connection. However, there is a lot of debate around whether you really need VPN protection or not.

The reason I purchased a VPN, NordVPN to be exact, for the first time is because when I am traveling and trying to log in to my bank accounts they usually block me, thinking I am a scammer trying to log in from a foreign country.

I have a month-long trip coming up in the Philippines and wanted to be worry-free doing my banking online, so I decided to go with NordVPN. I haD NordVPN and Surfshark in mind and decided to go with NordVPN after finding a good deal online.

NordVPN and Surfshark are two big players on the market, although they are the same company, but each operates under a separate entity. NordVPN operates under Panama and Surfshark operates under the Netherlands jurisdiction. Both of they say they have a “zero-log” policy.

I found NordVPN to be user-friendly and intuitive. After using it for ten minutes, I became familiar with the NordVPN Windows app and had no issues changing my location and trying out different settings. Their Android App is also very easy to use.

As I learn more about NordVPN, I will be putting together tips and tricks videos and all these videos can be found here in this Playlist: VPN 101: Tips, Tricks & the Basics

A 5-Star Airline, EVA Air, Does Not Have 24-Hour Customer Service Support

EVA Air’s 24-Hour Customer Service Phone Number Doesn’t Exist

When you think of a 5-Star Airline, the first thing to come to your mind is excellent customer service support and you need a phone number to do that. I tried calling EVA Air for 2 days to reach a live person and failed, and so did my travel agent. This is because it looks like a 24-hour phone number doesn’t exist for EVA Air.

If you try calling EVA Air on their website, it asks you to pick your location and directs you to a local number where no one picks up the phone and it goes to voice mail. I tried calling number after number given to me by my travel agent or found on the EVA Air website. Some of them are: 416-598-8808, 281-209-0022, 800-695-1188, and many others. None of them worked.

One number (801-636-9417) seemed to be claiming to be EVA Air, but when you ask them to provide any sort of information, they hang up. I have a feeling that some of the numbers are scamming people, knowing that customers are looking to reach EVA Air and they can’t because there is no such customer service offered.

What I don’t understand is what are customers supposed to do when they are traveling EVA Air and get stuck in the middle of the trip or emergencies arise and need to contact EVA Air right away? It is possible EVA Air has a 24-hour support line, but they are hiding it and will only reveal it when people are stuck at the airport.

I have a video on this here: https://youtu.be/TfvmDmkROSo

If you happen to know EVA Air’s 24-Hour Customer Service number that works, please leave a comment on that video to help other fellow travellers.

What Is a Smart Business Card (Smart Digital Business Card)

How to Use a Smart Digital Business Card

Smart business cards are the business cards of the future and making a lot of buzz these days. I will give you some highlights about smart business card in this article.

A smart business card is a plastic (they can be metal also) business card, which looks like a regular business card. But it has a scannable QR code to provide contact information or you can even tap it on your NFC-enabled phone to transfer the contact info as a V file.

A smart business card also comes with an app which lets you scan a QR code without the need of a physical smart card. You can update your scannable information any time on the app or on a desktop. This is big difference when compared to a paper business card, as once you print a paper business card it cannot be changed anymore.

Another advantage a smart business card provides is that it never runs out. So once you have one, people can scan or tap forever and you don’t have to worry about running out of cards.

Two big disadvantages of a smart business card are that people may be reluctant to tap and download a vcf file, which is your contact card, thinking it maybe some kind of scam. Also, you have to rush people to scan the QR code, which may not be viable sometimes.

On the other hand, you can hand over a paper business card without rushing and I think you would have a better chance of a follow-up when someone has a physical business card and they wont be thinking of any sort of scam or some sort of unauthorized access to their phone by installing a vcf file.

While both a paper business card with a QR code and a smart digital business card with a QR code and NFC tapping option have advantages and disadvantages, I think paper business cards will still survive a long time.

You can watch this video here for more: What Is A Smart Business Card