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For more than a year now, Costco has been preparing to take its store-branded credit card business in a new direction . Specifically, it’s transferring its credit card network from long-time partner American Express to Citigroup and Visa . After hitting a few snags in the road, the shopping club now plans to make things official in June.  USA Today report s that that’s when the retailer will officially transfer its Costco-branded credit portfolio to Citibank and cardholders will receive their new plastic. Under the deal, which was supposed to close in April but was delayed, Visa will become the exclusive credit-card network for Costco stores, and Citi will be able to issue the retailer-branded cards. Once the transition is official — a specific date is still to be determined — current American Express cards will no longer work at the retailer. Current Costco/American Express cardholders will continue to earn rewards on their cards until the deal goes through, USA Today reports...

Our national nightmare is nearly over: the so-called “footlong” sandwich from Subway will finally have to measure up to a full 12 inches in length. A judge last week gave final approval to a settlement resolving a class-action lawsuit customers filed in 2013. An Australian teenager shared a photo of his sandwich on Facebook that was only 11 inches, kicking off an international media blitz. Further investigations by customers and media outlets found that many sandwiches measured only 11 or 11.5 inches. According to the settlement — which received preliminary approval in October — Subway agrees to institute practices for at least the next four years to ensure that sandwich bread measures at least 12 inches long, reports The Associated Press . The judge approved $520,000 in attorney fees and $500 for each of the 10 individuals who were representatives of the class, but no monetary claims were awarded to potential members of the class. “It was difficult to prove monetary damages, b...

The bright pink mustaches and the “U” decals used to designate ride-sharing vehicles for Uber and Lyft have found a second purpose: making their owners quick cash on sites like eBay. While selling the insignias might be a good way for former drivers to pad their wallets — sometimes by thousands of dollars, it means the decals might be used for other purposes. For that reason, always be sure to double check the license plate, and driver’s name before getting in a hailed vehicle. [ Business Insider ] by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

Royal Caribbean cruise ship Anthem of the Seas is not having a good year so far: after getting smacked around by a major storm in February , the vessel had to turn around on another journey due to more bad weather, and, to add to the fun for passengers this time, a norovirus outbreak. The ship headed back to its home port in New Jersey on Sunday after running into another storm, Royal Caribbean Tweeted over the weekend “to avoid a severe storm and provide guests with a comfortable journey back home.” #AnthemoftheSeas will head back to Cape Liberty immediately to avoid a severe storm & provide guests with a comfortable journey back home. — RCLcorp (@RCLcorp) February 27, 2016 “On a recent sailing, Anthem of the Seas experienced bad weather that was much worse than forecast; therefore, we want to be extra cautious about our (guests’) safety and comfort when it comes to weather in the area,” a spokeswoman for the cruise line told WNBC-TV ( warning: link has video that will...

Savvy observers probably knew when Amazon created its Dash system of buttons that let consumers re-order single items that they use often that the buttons themselves were never the point. The real point of Amazon Dash was to create smart home goods that replenish themselves, like printers that order their own ink and dishwashers that prompt you to order more soap after a certain number of wash cycles. Now that technology will be applied to… water filters. Water filters? Yes, Brita has created a smart pitcher that’s part of Amazon Dash, connecting to your home WiFi and keeping track of how many gallons of water you’ve filtered. You connect the pitcher to your home Internet connection, then register for a Brita Infinity account and link that to your Amazon account. Remember, this is all supposed to simplify your life. Once the pitcher hits its limit, it sends an order to your Amazon account, which you confirm or cancel. “By integrating Wi-Fi connectivity into this pitcher so it can c...

If you own an older Nokia or Blackberry smartphone and are an avid user of WhatsApp, you might want to think about your phone’s future: the messaging service plans to end support for several operating systems by the end of the year.  WhatsApp announced the upcoming change on its blog as part of the future outlook for the company following its seventh anniversary last week. By the end of 2016, WhatsApp will no longer be supported on BlackBerry – including BlackBerry 10; Nokia S40; Nokia Symbian S60; Android 2.1 and Android 2.2; and Windows Phone 7.1. The company says it came to the decision to drop support for the systems in order to focus its efforts on the platforms that the majority of consumers use, such those offered by Microsoft, Apple, and Google. “When we started WhatsApp in 2009, people’s use of mobile devices looked very different from today,” WhatsApp said in its blog post. “About 70% of smartphones sold at the time had operating systems offered by BlackBerry an...

If today is the first birthday you’ve had since 2012, happy birthday! Today is your day, Leap Day babies, and because you only get to celebrate every four years, you might as well get some extra perks and freebies to mark the occasion. While today is mostly about honoring 200,000 or so Americans out there, as the chances of having Feb. 29 as a birthday are one in 1,461, there are a few places offering deals to everyone else as well. Deals for Leaplings and Leapers 1. Pizza Hut : Anyone who visits a participating Pizza Hut restaurant on Feb. 29 and shows a government-issued photo ID to prove they were born on Leap Day will receive a free, one-topping Personal Pan Pizza for carryout. 2. Hard Rock Cafe : Celebrate being a quarter of your actual age with a free entree from the Hard Rock Cafe’s “Leaplings Eat Free” menu today, by showing a valid photo ID at participating locations. 3. McAlister’s Deli : Guests with a Feb. 29 birthday will get a free cookie at all restaurants nationwi...

Last week, we warned readers that the so-called “ CEO email scam ” was back (did it ever really go away?) with a tax season twist: asking employees to hand over files of employee information, such as a W-2 form. The folks at Snapchat apparently didn’t get the memo, as the photo sharing company announced that it was the victim of a phishing scam that led to ne’er-do-wells getting their hands on the personal information of some employees.  Snapchat announced the hack on Sunday, noting that the issue only affected employees, that the company’s servers were not breached, and no user data was at risk. According to Snapchat, the scam took place when a payroll department employee was “targeted by an isolated email phasing scam in which a scammer impersonated our Chief Executive Officer and asked for employee payroll information.” The email wasn’t recognized as a scam, either by the employee or by email spam filters, and payroll information — including social security numbers, bank det...

We first heard Disney was considering a new surge pricing model back in October, and thus, it has come to pass: the next time you plan a trip to the mouse’s house, you’re likely going to be paying more, depending when you visit. The new surge pricing system is in place as of yesterday at U.S parks including Disneyland and Disney World, reports the Los Angeles Times , in a change from the current one-day ticket price of $99. If you decide to hang out at the park on a slow day, like a Wednesday in the middle of September, you’ll pay $95. But most days of the year will be more expensive, with prices for a “regular” day or “peak” day hiking to $105 and $119, respectively. About 30% of the year will be designated as “value days,” 44% will be “regular” and 26% will be “peak,” which means you’ve got a 70% of paying more than you do now. This is going to be a good thing for crowd management, says Disney, instead of being all about the almighty dollar. “The demand for our theme parks cont...

It seems as if each year airlines shrink the sizes of their seat in the name of fitting more people into their flying metal tubes. One lawmaker wants to put an end to that trend by creating a seat-size standard for commercial airlines.  The Federal Aviation Administration should establish unspecified seat-size requirements in an effort to prevent airlines from continually cutting seat size and leg room in order to pad their bottom line, New York Senator Chuck Schumer told the Associated Press Sunday. Schumer plans to get the ball rolling on the requirement by creating an amendment to the currently pending FAA Reauthorization bill. “One of the most vexing things when you travel on an airplane is there’s almost no legroom on your standard flight,” Schumer said. “There’s been constant shrinkage by the airlines.” In fact, the senator says that the average distance between rows of seats — known as the seat pitch — has decreased from 35 inches in the 1970s to 16.5 inches today...

The Coolest hit Kickstarter in 2014 , raising over $13 million and promising backers “a party disguised as a cooler.” That party may be winding down or at least significantly delayed, as the project’s creator says that he is now out of money and looking for an investor to help keep cranking out coolers. It turns out that Team Coolest had always planned on having a budget shortfall, but expected to make it up in sales. We don’t have the e-mail sent to backers, but Crowdfund Insider does , and it read in part: We are in the process of identifying the right partner who can provide the capital and strategic resources to fund the remaining production of backer rewards and help grow the company to the next level. We’re not quite there yet, but it is moving forward. Translation: if you have millions of dollars and also think that smart coolers are the future, drop them a line. Either way, the coolers will be delayed even more… unless you’re an Amazon customer. Yes, the controversial Am...

The closure of hundreds of Walmart stores earlier this year wasn’t good news for anyone, except for perhaps some small-town storeowners and well organized resellers . One group that’s really benefiting, even though they’d probably rather not, is OUR Walmart, a group that is not a union, but works to share information between employees and organizes protests and strikes. As store closings continued, OUR Walmart noticed their Internet traffic is up. It’s one thing to have a lot of Online visitors, but one leader explained to Buzzfeed that the increase in traffic also means that more people are reaching out and interested in talking. He also notes that increases in traffic tend to happen when there are stories in the news stories about the stores and their plight, and with key dates affecting employees’ status under the federal WARN law. That requires 60 days’ notice before a layoff, and some workers are still waiting to either find a job at a different store, or receive severance payme...

The problem isn’t necessarily that a man in Massachusetts went out and patched some holes in his street himself, at his own expense. The town prefers to use hot asphalt instead of the patching material he used. The core problem is that he happens be the sales manager for the company that sells that patching material. Other nearby towns do use the material, and town officials suspect that his ultimate goal isn’t to prevent pothole-related accidents and damage to cars. They think that he wants to his company’s product and demonstrate that it holds up better. Making his own street––where he’s patched two potholes recently––safer was a nice bonus. One neighbor noted how deep the hole was on camera with TV station WGZ , but the town would still prefer if he hadn’t used the street as a sales demonstration. “Instead of filling it, tell us where it is and we’ll do it,” the town manager told the TV crew. The resident isn’t in trouble or anything, but the town is in the strange position wher...

Two years ago we profiled Ellia Kassoff , the mad genius who seems intent on bringing back every brand that you ever said “remember when…” about. He has already resurrected Hydrox, the original sandwich cookie, but he’s also been battling Macy’s for several years over a slew of trademarks for stores Macy’s acquired and shut down. Today, Kassoff says he’s reached a deal with the department store giant that will allow him to try to breathe new life into several long-dead retail brands. Kassoff has a knack for researching defunct brands and taking a risk on claiming trademarks that he believes are up for grabs because the most recent owners of those marks have not used them. Given the sheer number of stores that Macy’s has acquired directly or inherited through mergers with Federated Department Stores in 1994 and May Department Stores in 2005, there was a trove of once-popular store brands that had gone unexploited and whose trademark went undefended. Among the many Macy’s-related bra...

If anyone ever tries to convince you that life isn’t constantly getting better, remember this: only an average of three people each year since 2012 have stuck contact lenses soaked in hydrogen peroxide in their eyes and caused injuries bad enough to report to the Food and Drug Administration. 61 people did from 2010 to 2011. The reason for this medical miracle? Red plastic. Specifically, red plastic tips on bottles of contact lens solution that contains peroxide. Broadly speaking, there are two types of contact lens solution that disinfect your lenses: multi-purpose solution disinfects and dissolves protein and fat deposits on your lenses, and does not scorch your corneas. You do, however, have to rub the lenses to clean them. Hydrogen peroxide disinfecting solution performs the same functions but doesn’t contain preservatives, and users do not need to rub the lenses to clean them, but if used to store lenses in a case not designed for use with peroxide solution, they can cause ter...

Two years ago, regional airlines warned that new regulations, higher costs of school, and lower salaries had led to a shortage of pilots for the companies that typically handle the smaller, regional routes for larger airlines. Now, one short-haul carrier says that lack of pilots is the reason it’s filed for bankruptcy.  Labor disputes and the loss of up to 40 pilots a month during contract negotiations led Republic Airways — which provides flights for American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and United Continental — to file for bankruptcy Thursday, Forbes reports. The Indianapolis-based airline, which operates a fleet of 240 small planes, was able to negotiate a new labor contract with employees in October, but that simply wasn’t enough. “Our filing today is a result of our loss of revenue during the past several quarters associated with grounding aircraft due to a lack of pilot resources, combined with the reality that our negotiating effort with key stakeholders shows no app...

Amazon’s streaming video programming is just another way for the company to entice customers to sign up for Prime memberships, right? Who can resist free 2-day shipping and Alpha House ? Yet the company’s new reality show, a fashion design competition called The Fashion Fund, is available to stream for free with ads as long as you have an Amazon account. Oh, and by the way, you can buy the finalists’ collections on Amazon. The Fashion Fund already gave out awards to fresh and talented new designers before it had a reality show, and the show started out on the cable network Ovation. What’s new is that they can potentially reach everyone with an Amazon account, and the intense cross-promotion happening. Amazon gets to attract people who are at least a bit interested in fashion to visit their site––where they have coincidentally just started to carry their own in-house fashion brands . The Fashion Fund and the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund, meanwhile, get to put the contestants’ product...

Eight months after a Department of Transportation audit criticized the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for failing to hold automakers responsible for defects, a second audit is raising additional concerns about NHTSA’s ability to sniff out problem automobiles.  The latest audit [ PDF ] from the DOT’s Office of Inspector General acknowledges that NHTSA has made strides over the last five years, but also points out that some necessary programs have not yet been implemented. This includes a training program for investigators that would help them better spot safety risks in automobiles. NHTSA investigators “may not be sufficiently trained to identify and investigate potential vehicle defects, or ensure that vehicle manufacturers take prompt and effective action to remediate issues,” the report found. ODI also hasn’t conducted any post-training audits, despite committing to these audits in response to the recommendation, including evaluations of employee knowle...

We learned about Kmart Dental in Florida from reader Jason, who sent us a link and noted that it “has got to be the oddest thing inside of a Kmart anywhere.” We don’t know whether it holds any strangeness records, but a dentist’s office inside a discount store is pretty unusual. We wondered how they ended up there, and whether Kmart dental offices were a common thing that we had just never heard of, so we called them up and asked. The office is quite large, now employing six dentists, and the practice actually predates the Kmart itself. The founder and owner, Dr. Steven Aaron, opened the practice inside a Jefferson Ward store in 1982. Jefferson Ward was a discount chain owned by Montgomery Ward and based in Miami, and its stores were all either closed or were purchased by Bradlees in 1985. Jefferson Ward was gone, but the dental office stayed. Kmart took over the building, and the dental office stayed where it was. “They built the Kmart around us,” the practice’s longtime receptioni...

Five years ago, the Food and Drug Administration first warned a Florida man to stop peddling a supposed cure for herpes until he proved it worked and was safe. He subsequently tweaked the marketing to make it less cure-like, but federal prosecutors say he still went too far in promising his supplement could treat the sexually transmitted disease. Back in 2011, the maker of a product called Viruxo was selling it as a “New Herpes Treatment! Cure for Herpes Outbreaks,” telling people that they could “Never Have A Herpes Outbreak Again” if they took “America’s #1 Herpes Outbreak Eliminator!” Statements like these didn’t go over to well with the FDA, which sent out a warning letter , saying that any product making claims to cure or treat a disease must be considered a “drug” under the letter of the law . More precisely, because Viruxo is not just a variation on an existing product that is generally recognized as safe, it’s considered a “new drug,” meaning its safety and efficacy must be...

Nearly two years ago nutritional company Herbalife revealed that it was under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission for its often controversial business practices, or what some people claim is a pyramid scheme . Now, it looks like the company is ready to put the federal probe behind it. Herbalife revealed in its recently filed annual report [ PDF ] that it was in talks with regulators to resolve the nearly two-year long investigation. “The company is currently in discussions with the FTC regarding a potential resolution of these matters,” Michael Johnson, chairman and CEO of Herbalife, said during an earnings call Thursday . “A possible range of outcomes include the filing by the FTC of a contested civil complaint or further discussions leading to a settlement, which could include monetary penalties and other relief or the closure of these matters without action.” The FTC’s investigation centered on the company’s multi-level marketing sales strategy that worked by exclusive...

I’ve never been on a cruise, but if I were to find myself stuck on a massive ship with thousands of other people and no exit other than leaping into the sea, I’d hope there would be enough food and drink to keep everyone entertained, lest it devolve into apocalyptic anarchy-at-sea. Thankfully, the cruise operators make sure to pack a lot of booze and snacks along for the trip.  More precisely — according to an Associated Press look at the behind-the-scenes operations at Royal Caribbean — that cruise ship will have 5,400 lobster tails, 21,000 ice cream cones, 14,800 pounds of potatoes, and 31,900 bottles of beer. And all of that is stowed on the ship in a matter of hours. While cleaning state rooms and emptying the trash are all major parts of the cruise ship turnaround, making sure there’s enough food, booze, and just-in-case items is one of the most important aspects of the cruise ship business. The AP reports that each week while the soon-to-deboard passengers on the Oasis o...