uLawmaker Urges Airlines To Drop Holiday Baggage Surchargesr

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  With two airlines set to show their bah humbug by increasing baggage fees just in time for the holidays, one lawmaker is asking them to rethink that plan, you know, in the spirit of the season and all. 

  Florida Senator Bill Nelson urged Spirit Airlines, Frontier Airlines, and other U.S. carriers to put aside any plans to increase checked-bag fees during the peak holiday travel time.

  Earlier this week, Consumerist reported that both Spirit and Frontier planned to add surcharges to checked and, in Frontier’s case, carry-on bag fees.

  For Spirit the increase will be $2 for both legs of a flight, while Frontier’s extra charge varies between an additional $5 to $10.

  “These increased surcharges fly in the face of declining fuel costs and appear focused on increasing profitability on the backs of American families,” Nelson wrote. “If your company does plan to impose holiday surcharges, I request that you rescind those plans immediately.”

  In the letter, Nelson points to a Commerce Committee report released in August that found ancillary fees, such as change, cancellation and baggage fees, often keep consumers in the dark about the true cost of air travel.

  “The report made a number of recommendations, including one requiring ancillary fees to have a clear connection between the cost incurred by the airline and the fee charged,” he writes.

  Nelson says he hopes to include the fee recommendations in legislation reauthorizing the Federal Aviation Administration next year.

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uGoogle Maps & Search Results Now List Businesses’ Holiday Hoursr

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• Google is once again revamping its Maps and Search platforms, adding functionality to make the services more useful for consumers – especially those doing a little holiday shopping. 

  Google announced today that it would add holiday hours to Google Maps and Google Search results.

  “When you search for a business and a major holiday is within the next seven days, you’ll see whether the business has a special holiday schedule,” the company said in a blog post. “Not only will you avoid showing up to find the doors locked, but you’ll save time by not having to call the business or check the website for hours.”

  While the new information can no doubt be helpful for time-strapped shoppers, it’s not foolproof.

  The results will only show times if the company already lists its holiday hours. If the company doesn’t post the time it is open during holidays, the Google Search and Maps results will include a warning message alerting you that the actual hours may be different.

  

  To use the new function, individuals need to tap on the “Open Now” filter to see the open dates and times.

  “Because holiday hours and warnings are available globally, if you happen to be celebrating Boxing Day in the UK or New Year’s Eve in Sweden, you’ll see info specific to the country you’re in,” the company said.

  [via The Verge]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uSprint Giving Away 1 Year Of Amazon Prime With Pricier Samsung Phonesr

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  When Amazon tried to sell the public on its Fire Phone, one of the inducements was that the phone, which originally cost $199 with a two-year AT&T contract, would come with a one-year membership to Amazon Prime. Sweet deal, since Prime costs $99 per year, and Amazon eventually sold the phones for a buck. The Fire Phone itself flopped, but te idea of giving away Prime subscriptions with phones may hold promise.

  Customers have to buy a specific combination of phone and carrier to get the deal: they need to buy a newer Samsung phone from Sprint. Specifically, Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 edge Galaxy S6 edge+ or a Note5. If those phones and their data plans don’t appeal to you, stick to cheaper phones o don’t get a smartphone at all.

  After a long period of losing subscribers, Sprint is on an upswing. Now, though, by joining forces with the new owners of RadioShack, the company was able to
  the company’s subscription service that provides access to streaming media, free shipping on Amazon-fulfilled orders, and discounted subscriptions to the Washington Post.

  Amazon was rumored to be one of the bidders for shuttered RadioShack locations, but getting Prime subscriptions in the hands of new phone purchasers would have been one of the goals of tat deal: this way, they can simply concentrate on making phones that people want to buy instead, and on that new bookstore that they opened in Seattle.

  Report: Amazon Wants To Buy Some RadioShack Stores, Too

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uYou Can Record Movies Off Netflix, Or Music Off Spotify, But You’re Not Allowed Tor

uConsumerist Friday Flickr Findsr

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• Here are five of the best photos that readers added to the Consumerist Flickr Pool in the last week, picked for usability in a Consumerist post or for just plain neatness.

  
  
  
  
  

  Want to see your pictures on our site? Our Flickr pool is the place where Consumerist readers upload photos for possible use in future Consumerist posts. Just be a registered Flickr user, go here, and click “Join Group?” up on the top right. Choose your best photos, then click “send to group” on the individual images you want to add to the pool.

  
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by Laura Northrup via Consumerist

uFederal Inquiry Probes TCF Bank’s Overdraft Practicesr

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  Overdraft fees cost consumers an average of $32 billion each year. The hefty fees and their often less-than-transparent policies, which vary greatly between banks and financial products, have long garnered the ire of consumer advocates and federal regulators. Case in point: a Minnesota-based bank is now under investigation for possibly unfair and deceptive practices related to its overdraft program. 

  TCF Financial, which operates 376 branches in Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, Colorado, Wisconsin, Arizona, South Dakota and Indiana, announced in a filing [PDF] with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it may face legal action from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

  According to the letter, the Bureau’s enforcement office “is recommending that the CFPB take legal action against TCF related to compliance with laws relating to unfair, deceptive and abusive acts and practices … in connection with TCF’s practices in administering checking account overdraft program ‘opt-in’ requirements.”

  Under federal law, banks are required to get a customer’s approval to process debit and ATM transaction that exceed the amount of funds currently available in an account. If a customer doesn’t opt-in to the overdraft program their transaction is simply declined.

  While that requirement has been in the books since 2010, a Pew Charitable Trusts report and video released earlier this year found that many account holders were unaware of the opt-in rule and several were never given the option.

  The letter, known as a Notice and Opportunity to Respond and Advise (NORA), gives the bank the opportunity to present its position on the program and why it should not face sanctions to the CFPB.

  A spokesperson for TCF tells the Chicago Tribune that the bank plans to respond to the letter.

  “We believe our overdraft ‘opt-in’ practices comply with all applicable laws and regulations,” the spokesperson said.

  TCF Bank overdraft practices could trigger legal action [The Chicago Tribune]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uNew Bud Light Deal Means Active NFL Players Can Be Used To Shill For Beerr

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  Bud Light has been an official beer-like drink of the National Football League for a few seasons now, and ads for Bud Light have long featured retired athletes, but the league had barred the use of any active players in beer commercials. That’s about to change thanks to a multi-year deal between the NFL and the popular beverage brand.

  AdAge reports that the new agreement will allow Bud Light to feature actual in-game footage of real NFL games in its TV commercials. That’s a change of pace from either trotting out former players, or showing beer-loving fans cheering on from fake stadium stands, pre-gaming in generic parking lots, or watching a game at home.

  But there is a catch. Don’t expect — at least not yet — to see Tom Brady telling you about the cold, refreshing blah blah of AB InBev’s low-cal beer-water product. As AdAge explains, the use of game footage has to be done so that individual players aren’t identified.

  We have to wonder if that’s a concession to watchdogs who would be concerned about the use of famous, active athletes to sell kids a product they are already snatching from their parents’ garage refrigerator — or if it’s a way to prevent NFL players’ agents from demanding more cash for using their clients’ likenesses in ads that traditionally pay celebrities very well.

  We’re just saying that if we were Peyton Manning’s agent — who has no doubt negotiated huge-dollar deals to have his client shill for Nationwide and others — and we saw his face being use to sell Bud Light, we’d be ticked.

  Not just because Peyton isn’t seeing yet another truckload of cash back up to the underground Scrooge McDuck vault we assume he has constructed underneath his estate, but because associating Manning’s face with Bud Light might make it more difficult to secure him a sponsorship deal with a competing beer when he does retire.

  But back to the league’s rationale for this deal.

  “We are trying to help them sell beer,” explains the NFL’s Sr. VP in Charge of Shameless Cash Grabs (okay, we made up the title, but the quote is real). “And the way they can do that is to leverage the NFL to the most avid fans in sports.”

  Speaking of shameless cash grabs, the AdAge story also explains why Bud Light’s new lineup of NFL team-branded cans doesn’t include all 32 teams. That’s because the use of those logos on the cans has to be negotiated with each individual team, and MillerCoors still holds exclusive deals with the Chicago Bears, Minnesota Vikings, Green Bay Packers and the Dallas Cowboys.

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist