Never choose to pay in 'your' currency

Why do we get asked whether we want to be charged in dollar/dirham/euro or our own currency so often? Well, it is not really a convenience – it is basically a way to charge a hefty fee in exchange for giving a price total that is in your currency but might not be what you actually pay! Why not? Well, the ZAR amount (for example) might anyway be converted into dollars and back to rand again when it goes off on your account. The hefty fee comes in with the exchange rage. In this morning's transaction, Amazon quoted R13,91 per dollar but the headline rate at the time was R13,39 which is quite a big difference. In the end, the amount actually charged to my card (in ZAR) was almost R250 less than the ZAR amount quoted by Amazon. Caveat Emptor.

UX confusion at Emirates

User interface confusion remains a feature of everyday IT usage... and so does the perennial problem of the escaped character (\'). This time on the Emirates website, I think. When the computers start learning how to fix this kind of problem themselves, I shall start getting worried. ;-) :-)