So festive and abundant will be the gatherings of learned societies in coming weeks that one might think the point of the holiday season is to share papers, not gifts. (Every paper is a gift, I know.)
Conference travel effects a grand annual transfer of wealth from gown to town, although it is not often observed. In the next few weeks, a braying mass of scholars will descend upon the designated conference sites for such groups as the American Philosophical Association, the Modern Language Association, and the American Historical Association. Those weary travelers will arrive to the glee of airlines, hoteliers, and restaurateurs—thereby adding new meaning to the philosopher William James's reference to the "cash value" of ideas.
Such travel costs are a major professional expense for everyone from the lowliest desperate, job-seeking graduate student to the chair-holding professor whose institution subsidizes her travel generously. The financial cost lies not only in the most obvious factors, such as the charges for your room. Consider, for example, the delay between expenditure and reimbursement. The persistent habit of bursars in insisting upon receipts, even though a perfectly sound business practice, converts travel expenditures into temporary loans by scholars to their universities. You pay for your plane tickets far in advance usually, but the purchase cannot be reimbursed until after the conference. So scholars carry the costs of travel for months, sometimes, until receipts are filed and reimbursement checks cut.
There are also fees. Consider not just conference-registration fees, but the small fees tacked on by credit-card companies. When cavorting with other presenters in St. Peterburg at the Third International Conference on Nikolai Chernyshevsky, you may think it a grand gesture to pay for the table's round of spirits by slipping the waiter your credit card. However, back in the States, you may discover a pesky currency-conversion fee slapped onto the bill. Or, when stuck in O'Hare waiting for a connecting flight to Duluth, Minn., for the First Annual Conference on Psychotropic Substances, you might realize that you forgot to withdraw cash from your bank and find yourself forced to use an airport ATM with a $4 transaction fee—prompting you yourself to reach for a psychotropic substance or two.
You can blunt such adverse effects with sound credit-card practices. It pays, for instance, to save up money well in advance, allowing you to pay off credit-card balances no matter what your expense level for a particular month, so that you don't have to carry a balance and pay interest on it while waiting for reimbursement from your institution (for more principles of sane credit-card use, consult my July 24 column).
An excellent credit card is also essential for sound conference travel. There is a vast world of difference among credit cards. Three cards worth considering are the Citi Hilton HHonors Visa Signature Card, the Hilton HHonors Card from American Express, and the Charles Schwab Invest First Visa Credit Card. I've used all of them to my satisfaction. None of them have an annual fee—no card is worth paying that, not to Pennywise, at least.
The Citibank and American Express Hilton HHonors cards work nearly the same way, although one is a Visa and the other American Express: For every charge made on those cards, from groceries to gas, you earn points toward free stays at the Hilton chain, which includes, in addition to its luxury brand, such other hotels as Hampton Inn, DoubleTree, Embassy Suites, and Hilton Garden Inns. The cards are especially lucrative when charging a night spent at those hotels, because that earns you double points. With the Citibank Visa, you may also double dip, earning air miles along with Hilton points for each stay.
To take full advantage of those cards you must, obviously, stick by the Hilton brand. That might mean taking a pass on the official conference hotel. I've never found that to be a social liability. At some point, all conferencegoers retire to their rooms. There is almost always a Hilton option within walking distance of the proceedings, I have found, and often at a discount to the officially designated hotel. As you build up HHonors points, as they are called, you wind up with free nights to spend at other conferences (stretching your yearly travel allowance), to use for research trips, or to visit Dear Old Ma.
The Charles Schwab Invest First Visa Credit Card is the best credit card in the world in financial terms, as far as Pennywise can make out. It gives 2 percent cash back on every single purchase you make. It reimburses all ATM fees, no matter where they are incurred. It charges nothing for foreign-currency transactions. The only hitch with the Schwab card is that it requires cardholders to open a Schwab One brokerage account. No deposit in that account is required, though, and the cash funneled into it from your card purchases can be transferred over to a savings account, if you wish. You don't have to buy stocks with it. You can play Santa Claus with it for yourself or someone else.
Let's say, for example, you and your partner attend next year's Walter Rodney Thirtieth Anniversary Memorial Conference at the University of Guyana—well, there ought to be one—and the plane tickets, hotel, and sundries total $3,482. The following month, $69.64 will magically appear in your Schwab brokerage account. Spend at an identical monthly pace, as many people do who charge all their living expenses, and your cash-back total would amount to $835.68 after a year. Not bad just for using the Schwab card to make purchases you would make anyway. Since some of those charges are reimbursed by your institution, if you can tap a travel or research account, now it is you who are finally making a little money, despite the time delay between charge and reimbursement.
If you decide to leave the money in the brokerage account, Schwab offers some excellent fund options, such as the Schwab Total Stock Market Index Fund (0.09 percent expense ratio) or the Schwab International Index Fund (0.19), each requiring only $100 as minimum investment. But you can also just transfer it electronically to a Schwab high-interest bank account—or even to your hometown bank.
Warning: That deal probably won't last forever. Schwab is offering it as a loss leader to win over business. Another warning: If you do wind up concentrating your assets at Schwab, it may solicit you to accept its financial advising, but the additional fees are unlikely to be worthwhile for small investors who follow basic principles of diversification and cost minimization.
The Schwab card has exceptionally generous cash-back provisions. The Citi and American Express Hilton cards reap major hotel points and air miles. Used strategically, those three cards can really maximize your conference-travel dollars, but if for some reason they don't suit you, look into alternatives at Bankrate.com.
It pays to get a high-quality card or two because even if the bursar dithers around about reimbursing your travel money, you will be getting some reward for your expenditures. An excellent card can win you hundreds of dollars a year in flights, hotel stays, or money—just for attending holiday conferences, with bells on.
Comments
1. whiteknight - December 14, 2009 at 09:38 am
Has the Chronicle sunk to shilling for certain credit card companies now?
2. clean - December 14, 2009 at 09:38 pm
ummm... yea....
So we are not smart enough to plan for such events? We dont see them, like Christmas, on the horizon?
The only solution is to have a credit card?
And there is no way to have the university pay for the plane ticket and conference registration? I somehow doubt that I have found the only 2 in the universe that, if you do the paperwork, pay for these things ahead of time.
3. quakeroats - December 15, 2009 at 08:18 am
Creepy. This very likely makes use of a press release produced by a marketing arm of these credit card companies. Both the Chronicle and these companies are hiding authorship. Plainly dishonest and exploitative. That many academics must go into debt to attend conferences with the hope that someday they will obtain the tenure track job that pays for travel shows how cynical the profession is as a whole.
4. professorpennywise - December 17, 2009 at 07:23 am
Thank you for the feedback. I appreciate the prod to clarify.
This particular column is one of a series that I write every month under the name "Academic Assets." I had assumed some line of development in readers who understand my outlook, but that may have been an error. The method of credit-card use that I have consistently recommended is to never carry debt. If a credit card is something that makes one prone to overspend, I have advised cutting up all credit-cards and using only debit cards. This means I recommend that you use a credit card only for purchases you would otherwise make and only chalk up balances that you can pay for in toto. I urge no-annual fee cards. (This is all spelled out, for example, in the sound credit-card usage column linked to above in this column where it says "my July 24 column" -- though I've mentioned the points in other places.) The reason to use a credit card is the opposite of debt accumulation: it is to reap the rewards of the benefits.
Under the norms of usage that Pennywise encourages, therefore, the credit card companies actually lose money on you. You pay no fees or interest to them, they make no profit from you, and you benefit from the generous card bonuses that accrue. This is the opposite of shilling for the industry. It is in your interest.
It hardly bears stating, then, that the column was not inspired by company press releases. I have never received one, in point of fact. One of the primary reasons that I maintain anonymity is so that companies cannot contact me with sales materials. (Why, by the by, is it always the anonymous posters who evince the most paranoia about pseudonymous writers?)
The reason for the column was that the cards mentioned are excellent and deserve consideration by anyone using a card. There are no better credit cards on the market, to my knowledge, than the Schwab card. The reason I named it by brand is to inform consumers of the option, not because I have the slightest concern for the bottom line of Schwab. I have used it for half a year and consider it the best credit-card deal available. I informed readers of it because I challenge anyone to find a better deal. If they do, I'll be happy to write about it.
5. professorpennywise - December 17, 2009 at 08:08 am
A further note, by way of demonstration.
Assume a credit card user who charges exactly $10,000 a year in purchases. By my system, the user would pay off the balance every month and pay no fee. Schwab would return 2%, or $200, to the user over the course of the year.
Now assume another user who charges $50,000 a year in purchases. Shwab would pay that user $1,000 a year in purchases.
In short, this is a way to make money off the credit card companies, not pay them money.
6. lhwhitaker - December 17, 2009 at 11:29 am
I think you just might have. As a graduate student I gave up on seeking reimbursement for conference attendance. Even if I filled out the paperwork, there was always some way to deny paying for it. Our forms had a line that asked "who will be covering your classes in your absence." Even if the conference took place during a time when the University was closed (e.g. between Christmas and New Year's)the line had to be filled in. A n/a would cause the form to be kicked back, delaying payment by another month.
And don't get me started on communications between other departments on campus. My "Dissertation Completion Grant" took six months to be paid.
I'm not bitter
>>>>And there is no way to have the university pay for the plane ticket and conference registration? I somehow doubt that I have found the only 2 in the universe that, if you do the paperwork, pay for these things ahead of time.
7. clean - December 17, 2009 at 04:52 pm
Prof Penneywise,
There is a thread about this article here:
http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,65108.0.html
8. professorpennywise - December 18, 2009 at 05:10 am
Thanks to lhwhitaker for confirming that many universities do indeed require us to carry the load on expenses. I've worked at several and have never once had the kind of luxurious arrangement that "clean" enjoys. Great that "clean" is cleaning up, so to speak.
As for the sniping thread, so be it; par for the course with the Chronicle boards, which like many boards seem to thrive on over-the-top negative carping. Actually I've gotten reams of favorable mail since launching the column so I'm confident the column does serve a value for many. People are at different levels of knowledge on particular topics. Some value the restatement of what they know, some think a particular column obvious, on the whole it seems much appreciated, to judge by the mail I get at professorpennywise@yahoo.com. Feel free to send me constructive ideas for what I should *rather* be covering and I'll try to follow up on it. I often have.
I typically don't reply to criticism in the column space. The only reason I took the unusual measure of replying here was because I wanted to explain that what I proposed, which was to the benefit of ordinary consumers, not the credit card companies, so that uninformed criticism laboring under the misapprehension that I am a shill for credit card companies (!) would not deter someone else from seeking out this unusual opportunity and benefiting from it.
Done for now with all this. Signing off.
Happy holidays, all.
9. professorpennywise - December 18, 2009 at 05:18 am
Now I see almost all the negative comments on that comment list come from "clean," who there again misrepresents what I've written and argued consistently. So it goes. George Bernard Shaw once commented on reading reviews of those who take him to task for not pointing out things that he has always pointed out, and for pointing out things that he has never pointed out. This seems the fate of the writer.
10. clean - December 18, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Credit cards are tools. They are no more evil than a hammer. Credit card companies are no more evil than Sears. However, alcohol and marijuana are tools too. The problem is that many people abuse them. They do it to 'feel better' or for some other 'good' reason. The damage is just as bad from abusing credit cards as these other drugs.
Can people use them? Sure, but people can abuse them too. That is why I get my back up on articles like this that sell it to everyone. "Beer for Everyone; it cures Everything". Alcohol comes with a warning label. Maybe credit card should as well. I dont know if the allegations that marijuana and alcohol are 'gateway drugs', but how many people have chosen to consolidate their credit card debts into second mortgages, only be rebuild the credit cards and now have a mortgage? All of these can lead to people losing their homes.
Choices have consequences. Credit card payments take choices away. Somehow the author thinks that they can beat the credit card cos. at their game. Where is mention of the research that card users spend more than cash users? What happens when the card co "loses" your payment (check the court cases... Im not making this up) and you pay interest on those purchases?
Was it Mark Twain who said something like never bet that a man can make the jack of clubs jump out of a deck and spit tobacco juice in your ear or you ll end up with an ear full of tobacco juice. Credit cards offer 'rewards'. You pay for more for them than they are worth!
The behavioral finance literature discusses that credit card use hides the true cost of the purchase. You dont pay for anything the day you buy it, then when the bill comes it is hidden with the other things. Then people think that they only have to make the minimum payment.
The pushers /credit cos/casinos. have found that people also track other things like 'points'. IF you are tracking points, you are not paying attention to your wallet. Im not sure that is Pennywise, but I KNOW it is Pound Foolish!
Convenience comes at a price. Credit cards are convenient, but they hide the true cost of that convenience.
11. ansleyv - December 18, 2009 at 07:02 pm
Clean--
Your critique of credit cards may have merit, but not every academic is able to save $3000 to pay cash for a conference and wait for reimbursement for the university. If you are able to get your university to pay up front, that is great. I know my previous institution stopped doing that for accounting reasons. Now, I am at a state university and they are prohibited from doing so. What Prof. Pennywise offers is ONE WAY to get around the system. Of course there are others. I, for one, appreciate his suggestions and will look into these cards. I don't like to pay out of pocket for university business because it compromises my personal cash flow. If my water heater explodes, I'd like to have my full personal resources to use to correct it. It does not always work that way, but Prof. Pennywise is offering OPTIONS. It is up to each of us to explore them and make our own personal financial decisions.
12. clean - December 18, 2009 at 08:01 pm
I would not presume to tell the Professor what to write in their column, but I think that it is sad, and a bigger issue, that there are many among us who dont have an emergency fund. The idea that "not every academic is able to save $3000" is a problem on many levels. Of course it can be done! Perhaps the professor will help give hope where it is lost. If an exploding water explodes your financial world, then that is a real problem. Perhaps that is something that the professor should address. How can we all find ways to have an emergency fund as well as budget for an annual event? It may take time, but it can happen.
The problem is, credit cards, and the extra spending, et al that goes with credit cards are not usually conducive to financial health.
I hope that we can find real ways to save money and not think that we are "winning when we are losing again". Using a credit card doesnt keep us on a budget. You will save more money buy buying groceries with cash than by all the 'rewards' you will get by overspending with a credit card... but im back on my soap box. Perhaps the professor will discuss some of these issues.
13. awegweiser1 - December 20, 2009 at 09:53 pm
Having been to dozens of these things over 3+ decades, I offer the following
suggestions to deal with Universities declining expense requests or even paying your own way (even if tax deductible).
(1) These meetings should be scheduled in smaller to medium sized cities and not glamorous and pricey locations such as San Diego (nice beaches, great zoo and near exciting Tijuana),
Orlando (great theme parks but hot and sweaty in summer) or Las Vegas (thousands of tempting slot machines and scantily clad showgirls and such).
I am sure scores of places and vendors would be delighted to have the business of a convention and could provide a venue better than a local college gymnasium and at least one decent and moderately priced restaurant within walking distance.
(2) Reserve your lodging elsewhere well in advance rather than the recommended and "special" priced convention hotels. That is often fiction. Never mention you are there for a meeting but just a visiting tourist. Usually by scouting a nearby place and using an AARP or AAA discount will get you a better deal. You may not get the wonderful continental breakfast of facsimile bagels and weak coffee deal or an in room hair dryer. It is just a bit more inconvenient to walk a few blocks to get to the reception where you can use your one or two complimentary drink tickets and then get ripped for any more at the cash bar.
I tip nicely for good service in a restaurant, having worked in several, so I know something about the job, but almost never for somebody to pop the cap on a beer bottle for me.
Effort, skill, talent, experience or time not required for this task.
(3) Try to connect up with one or more other attendees and share a room and cost which is usually a lot less than two or three singles - in fact organizers of meetings might set up just such a system to connect people. Choice of gender optional.
NOT recommended because it is criminal fraud but sneak another person into the room with you to share cost. Just be careful of not leaving evidence for the housekeeper to report.
And they do work hard in a tedious job for tiny wages so a small tip would be in order.
As times get really desperate I know of attendees who have swapped several hundred dollar registration and admission badges to slide by the security gestapo for a special session they want to be at but don't really care about much of the rest but otherwise costs the same.
I might want to be at some paleontology events but don't give a fig about moon gas analysis and astrophysics.
AND unconfirmed, and I don't want to know and again, it is fraud, but I have heard rumors that some clever folks have fashioned phony badges. At least the vendor's area should be free and accessible by anybody - these people are trying to sell you something and it should not cost for you to view their wares.
14. professorpennywise - December 23, 2009 at 05:33 am
Highly intriguing suggestions. Pennywise advises legality, if only for the narrowly financial reason that illegality can be expensive. Ask the Madoff family.
15. tallmarc - December 31, 2009 at 09:34 am
My work leading student groups to academic conferences that invite undergraduate research presentations led me to a several year tussle with my business office and administration over carrying the costs (or incurring risks like a hold on my personal cc for a rental vehicle) not just for myself but for my students too!
I finally won this battle by soliciting help from the athletics director, who pointed out that sports teams and coaches use institutional credit cards as a matter of course. My own card appeared soon after.
Next we're taking our research "teams" to the Spam Bowl on an all-expenses paid scouting mission.
16. durrellbow - January 03, 2010 at 09:43 am
I find it infuriating that the Chronicle would publish an article that does not even bother to consider that scholars are not necessarily all in comparable financial situations.
As a so-called "independent scholar" (i.e., never having gotten a permanent position in my field of musicology, Ph.D. 2003), I have struggled through a constant stream of financial difficulties, eventually owing more than $120,000 to banks (various credit cards, loans, and a line-of-credit), government (defaulted student loans, reassessed back taxes), and my parents (having borrowed from their meagre retirement savings).
I have been employed full-time for only 22 months (three temporary academic positions) out of the past ten years, with various low-paying, part-time, temporary positions (additional courses, arts admin, reference article writing, computers, etc.) sometimes adding up to a sort of "half a living" the remaining 82% of the time, and my academic work (journal articles, conference papers, invited talks, a co-edited book, book proposals, and book reviews) thus essentially done for "free."
I recently declared bankruptcy (which will take care of about half of my debt), but I thus no longer have any credit cards to use for job interview expenses (whether eventually reimbursed or not), conference travel expenses (almost never reimbursed, in my case), credentials services, or anything else. I have not used credit to buy things like big-screen TVs. I live very modestly, but in the past decade I have nonetheless had to bail from presenting accepted papers at a number of national and international conferences.
How about some useful articles about alternative career paths? (I am now studying software development.) How about guidance for how to cope with the fact that the number of jobs to which one can apply has been decimated in the past year or so? (One of the merely three academic jobs to which I have been able to apply in the past several months apparently had more than 900 applicants.)
17. sahara - January 28, 2010 at 10:30 am
Durrellbow, I was in the humanities like you once upon a time and, seeing the economic handwriting on the wall, I sought and won a scholarship to a nationally-ranked professional school looking for diversity in their graduate student base. After 2 more years of study, I was earning what my former advisor was earning as a full professor, and I was delighted to join a bigger, broader, and stimulating world. My humanities background has made me an effective account manager for nonprofit and other clients, and a better board member of many worthwhile organizations. I have enjoyed my second career ever since. My advice is to find a local community college, start learning something practical such as computers, business, accounting (yes, a basic tool for many positions), software development, or even marketing/selling, and start enjoying your life with your newfound skills. (By the way, the naysayers were my colleagues in the humanities, so don't let their narrow experience sway you in your pursuit of something different and better.) Best of luck.