As a devotee of the proper use of American English, I completely agree with you. There is a difference between definition and nuance. (See my diatribe in "unfettered.")

If you use a credit card, the credit card company takes the risk of your not paying, not the travel company. If you use cash, that's not the case.

Thanks Michael! Great to have the real source. And great to know I nailed it without going there myself. ;-) Booyah!

I agree, could you imagine the robbery threat with a line full of people with their cheap and a lot of cash behind the counter?

It's a security mechanism- nothing more, I have an open account at Avis, have a card on file and rent about 15 to 20 a year for business travel. I never stand in line, I never pay a deposit, and I just do a quick reservation on my phone and pick it up in the airport parking lot. It's about getting their property back, and they absolutely have a right to ensure they do. If someone has terrible credit and doesn't have a bank card, it's probably not profitable to bother with that customer segment anyway. If it was, they wouldn't bend over backwards to please frequent business travelers.

Supposedly you must show identification documents to pay for these, so the "cash is not trackable" thing is a red herring.

Some as little as $100 in my experience, even less if you're renting because your car is in the shop. And then they hand you the keys to a highly portable piece of property usually worth $20,000 or more. Having your card on file gives them some assurance you'll come back. As for paying with currency, neither airline nor rental counters want lots of cash lying around.

The purpose of credit cards is to smooth out cash flow. I have spent many years on the ragged edge of making ends meet. If there is an unexpected expense, then a credit card lets me meet that need and pay it off in increments over time.

This is an essential philosophical underpinning for the use of credit cards. Too many people use them for electively purchasing things they do not need; on the other side of the spectrum are people who are so afraid to use them that they won't use a credit card to buy necessary food when they run out of money. Neither of these operational policies is functional: use credit cards for essentials to allow you to process debt as part of an ongoing cash flow.

Jan

It's not about convenience for them. It's about making you pay if you have to change your schedule. That's why they support TSA.

Thank you for the great discussion points.

Jan

That is correct, they will take a debit card, but depending on the franchise, will hold from $500 to $2500 on it until returned.

A credit card is legal tender, it is denominated in U.S. Dollars, it's just a mode of conferring the dollar, as a check blank does.

This is isn't about paper money, but I remember reading about a gas station owner awhile back that said he would accept junk silver coins for gasoline fill-ups. But more, he would accept the silver coins for the gasoline at a price that was prevalent at the time silver was in our money.

Meaning he would accept a silver quarter for a gallon of gas. I remember 22 cent gallon gas when we had real money. When you do the math using current silver prices on the melt value of a Washington silver quarter (about .1808 oz Ag) that is about $2.82 cents. Roughly a gallon of gas just a short while ago.

That's why I fly my own plane and have not rented a car in over 30 years.

I could have saved myself a lot of time by posting this link: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-cent...

Right from the horse's mouth so to speak.

I haven't flown for quite a while. Am I to understand that if I walked up to the ticket counter of an airline with cash, they'd refuse to sell me a ticket? Or charge me extra? American money not good enough to fly with? We have sunk very low folks.

The car rental is not a debt until you turn in your car at the end of the rental. At that point, rental agencies with which I have dealt in the past accept legal tender, but require a credit card before you can drive the car off their lot, as a guarantee that they will get paid. Airplane tickets are not property and are not debts; they are contracts. Payments under a contract can be whatever the parties to the contract have agreed. In making your reservation, you agreed that the airline could use your credit card to obtain payment for the contract called a ticket.

I don't like the airline's attitude.(At least, in my own
case it was one particular airline). In 2005 I went
from Va. to Minnesota to visit my (now) late father,
and got a supposedly discount ticket--I went to the
airport a few days ahead of time (in a cab) and those b--t--ds charged me extra for paying cash!
I suppose, under free enterprise principles, they
are entitled to refuse cash, but not to commit
criminal fraud, and I think they should have
warned me ahead of time.

It is legal tender for all "debts". When you go to purchase something there is no debt unless you buy it on credit. If you owe someone a debt and they refuse your paper, that absolves you from paying that debt. If you are trying to purchase something the seller has the right to demand payment in any form he chooses.

I asked a self-service gas station owner one time just to see. He had posted a sign saying no $50 or $100 bills. I asked “if I have already filled my tank and offer to pay with a $50, what would you do?” He knew the law and said he posted the sign for security reasons (i.e. so as not to have to keep a lot of cash in his register to make change) but that he would have to accept the offer of payment or I would get a tank of gas at no charge. What has happened since then is that stations post a sign that you either pay with a credit/debit card or PREPAY with cash. This way they can lawfully refuse your $50 without giving you a tank of gas.

The essence of the legal tender law is that YOU MUST accept government paper for a debt and to refuse the government's paper in payment of a debt means the debt is forgiven. This is especially critical to the Fed's ability to inflate the currency.

Once upon a time (and I have examples of this) the phrase in the upper left of a Federal Reserve Note said “THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS PUBLIC AND PRIVATE, AND IS REDEEMABLE IN LAWFUL MONEY AT THE UNITED STATES TREASURY, OR AT ANY FEDERAL RESERVE BANK”. Check your FRNs. Today they only include the first 11 words. Your FRN's are redeemed by your local grocery store or gas station. They give you something of value for your paper. The Fed or the Treasury will only give you more paper (or junk coins) – ask to redeem a $20 to day at a bank and your choices are on the order of “do you want two 10's, four 5's, or 20 1's?”

So, any business can refuse to accept your paper for any reason as long as you do not owe them a debt. If a business wants to do business with credit cards only that is there choice. If they want to do business in bushel's of corn that is also their choice. You of course are free to do business elsewhere.

And if you think about it, not having a cash drawer at an airline ticket counter makes life so much easier for the airline employees.

From a consumer security standpoint you are safer to use the credit card system than the debit. As much as they appear to be the same, they are not. Credit card networks have higher standards and requirements.

Hmm, great question! And yet, wouldn't private enterprises have the right to decide how they accept payments? There isn't any case of the federal government refusing to accept cash is there? (Now that I think about it, maybe we should try that with our IRS bill!)