Southwest Airlines Jumping on the "Cashless Cabin" Bandwagon

DevilsPGD wrote:
In message SMS
wrote:

DevilsPGD wrote:

For the cash-only society, we'll probably see airport vending machines
start selling Visa-logoed prepaid cards right in the airport, allowing
planes to remain cashless, while allowing the cash-only crowd to
effectively buy a voucher for plane food.
Perhaps. Remember that those prepaid cards often have very hefty fees
associated with them. There are activation fees, monthly or annual fees,
inactivity fees, and reload fees.

Some do, some don't. You can buy a $50 card at my usual grocery store
for about $55, no fees beyond that, however it has a relatively short
expiration date and cannot be reloaded.

That's a 10% premium, which is pretty high. Also, as you point out,
those cards have expiration dates, unlike regular gift cards (which in
California aren't allowed to expire or have inactivity fees).

I think a better system is a machine at each gate that sells tokens or
scrip or prepaid cards for cash, with no fees.

SMS wrote:

I think a better system is a machine at each gate that sells tokens or
scrip or prepaid cards for cash, with no fees.

Big pictu

IATA might need to get involved and develop some standards for cashless
aircraft transactions.

One issue is that if you buy a $20 prepaid card on airline X, and only
spend $2.50 on the flight, do you have a means to get your $17.50 back
after the flight ? Can you use that card on other airlines ?

Credit cards are really teh simplest form of payment. Perhaps VISA Intl
and Mastercard Intl should force all their members to provide for
pre-paid cards at no fee. This would not only solcve the problem of
payment on airplanes, but also allow teenagers to actually buy music
on-line. (right now, they can only steal it because they can't have
credit cards).

Bob Myers writes:

Being acceptable as tender is not the same as a requirement
that it be accepted.

If the customer provides correct change, the airline is required to accept
cash.

Shawn Hirn writes:

Wrong. There's nothing illegal about requiring a certain form of
payment. I know of many retail businesses where they will not accept
bills over $20.

They have to accept bills over $20 if the amount you owe is greater than the
bill you give to them.

John Doe wrote:

SMS wrote:


I think a better system is a machine at each gate that sells tokens or
scrip or prepaid cards for cash, with no fees.


Big pictu

IATA might need to get involved and develop some standards for cashless
aircraft transactions.

One issue is that if you buy a $20 prepaid card on airline X, and only
spend $2.50 on the flight, do you have a means to get your $17.50 back
after the flight ? Can you use that card on other airlines ?

Credit cards are really teh simplest form of payment. Perhaps VISA Intl
and Mastercard Intl should force all their members to provide for
pre-paid cards at no fee.

What should they provide cards at a loss?
MasterCard collects a few percnet per transaction.
Let's say 3 percent.
That's 60 cents on a $20 card.
Part of the money also goes to the store selling the card.
So, how are they supposed to profit?

It's different for store gift cards, like Best Buy.
They sell them at face value, because it gives the gain from the
products that are being purchased.

Mxsmanic wrote:

Shawn Hirn writes:


Wrong. There's nothing illegal about requiring a certain form of
payment. I know of many retail businesses where they will not accept
bills over $20.


They have to accept bills over $20 if the amount you owe is greater than the
bill you give to them.

No, they don't.

In message SMS
wrote:

DevilsPGD wrote:
In message SMS
wrote:

DevilsPGD wrote:

For the cash-only society, we'll probably see airport vending machines
start selling Visa-logoed prepaid cards right in the airport, allowing
planes to remain cashless, while allowing the cash-only crowd to
effectively buy a voucher for plane food.
Perhaps. Remember that those prepaid cards often have very hefty fees
associated with them. There are activation fees, monthly or annual fees,
inactivity fees, and reload fees.

Some do, some don't. You can buy a $50 card at my usual grocery store
for about $55, no fees beyond that, however it has a relatively short
expiration date and cannot be reloaded.

That's a 10% premium, which is pretty high. Also, as you point out,
those cards have expiration dates, unlike regular gift cards (which in
California aren't allowed to expire or have inactivity fees).

10% premium isn't bad when you compare it to the hefty activation,
monthly, annual, inactivity and reload fees of typical cards.

These are aimed at specific situations though, and I certainly wouldn't
recommend them for day to day use.

I think a better system is a machine at each gate that sells tokens or
scrip or prepaid cards for cash, with no fees.

No fees would be good. A 7-day expiry would probably do the trick to
make it profitable for the card issuer, and showing a pricelist and
allowing the card to be loaded with an arbitrary dollar value based on
the airline's menu would avoid having to overload and lose the card's
value.

In message Mxsmanic
wrote:

Bob Myers writes:

Being acceptable as tender is not the same as a requirement
that it be accepted.

If the customer provides correct change, the airline is required to accept
cash.

That is actually not correct.

If the airline has already served the food, then what you have said is
correct, however, if the airline hasn't yet served any food, there is no
debt, and therefore accepting cash is not a requirement.

http://www.ustreas.gov/education/faq...l-tender.shtml has a
reasonable summary,

| This statute means that all United States money as identified above are
|a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor.

No debt, no requirement to accept cash.


|There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business,
|a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment
|for goods and/or services.

It doesn't get much clearer.

DevilsPGD writes:

No debt, no requirement to accept cash.

So if the flight attendant waits until she opens the soda-pop can to ask for
money, she has to accept cash (or throw away the open can).

In article ,
mrtravel wrote:


It's different for store gift cards, like Best Buy.
They sell them at face value, because it gives the gain from the
products that are being purchased.

And assuming a fair percentage of those would have been MC/V
purchases, they get to keep that fee, too.