Travel

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Surprises Hidden in Credit Card Fine Print

Fidelity Signature VisaRecently, MrConsumer benefited from a bargain he wouldn’t have known about had he not checked the benefit fine print of his credit card’s website.

He has an upcoming trip to Washington, DC and was getting worried about all the airport horror stories of long lines and delays. He knew that TSA PreCheck is a means to get through airport security quicker but wasn’t about to pay close to $80 for a once-in-a-blue-moon plane trip.

It turns out, however, that some credit cards offer TSA PreCheck as a free benefit. But, only a couple of credit cards with no annual fee cover that cost. One is the U.S. Bank Altitude Connect Signature Visa, and the other is the Fidelity Rewards Visa Signature card.

MrConsumer coincidentally has that Fidelity card but never uses it — until now. Double checking the fine print, sure enough that is one of the few extra benefits still offered by this card. And the benefit is available every four years. (TSA PreCheck is a five-year membership for $79.95.)

*MOUSE PRINT:

Fidelity PreCheck benefit

While reading the Fidelity Guide to Benefits, however, MrConsumer found two nasty surprises.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Fidelity Visa lost benefits

Purchase security, which protects goods buyers if what they bought is lost or stolen within 90 days of purchase, has been a mainstay of credit card benefits for decades. Lost luggage protection is less common, but a nice, valuable benefit to have had for years.

This move by Fidelity follows an industry trend of dropping costly credit card benefits, as it did back in 2021 when it discontinued their very valuable “extended warranty” and “collision damage waiver” coverages (see our story back then). After receiving complaints, collision damage waiver was subsequently reinstated.

So keep an eye on your credit card’s benefit list — there may be some valuable goodies there you didn’t know about or news of other benefits soon to disappear.

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TSA’s New $45 Fee for Improper Travel ID Is More Than Double Original Fee

On December first, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced that starting on February first, any passenger who presents themselves at an airport check-in and does not have a Real ID drivers’ license, passport, or other acceptable form of identification will be charged a new $45 fee. As you will see, a mere 10 days earlier the TSA formally set the fee at just $18.

That fee is to use a modernized alternative identity verification system, called TSA Confirm.ID. If the passenger goes through the process successfully, they will in essence be cleared for air travel but only for a period of 10 days.

In checking on the process that the TSA used to authorize this new fee, MrConsumer looked at the Federal Register where official notices are published. There, as of December 3, the only notice he found was dated November 20, 2025 entitled, “TSA Modernized Alternative Identity Verification User Fee.”

*MOUSE PRINT:

TSA fee in Federal Register

It said the fee was $18, not $45. Referring to the $18 fee, the Federal Register notice indicated:

When setting fees for services, TSA adheres to Federal policy, including policy outlined in the Office of Management and Budget Circular A-25, dated July 8, 1993, regarding user charges. In summary, the circular provides information regarding the basis upon which user charges are to be established and implemented.

TSA has compiled a fee development report that provides a detailed discussion of the modernized alternative identity verification program’s expected costs, expected population, and fee determination. A copy of the fee development report can be accessed at TSA.gov.

So this says they did detailed calculations to come up the $18 price. We could not find that report on the TSA website.

Then, less than an hour after we first checked the Federal Register on December 3, the TSA filed another notice there saying they recalculated the fee, and that it was now $45:

*MOUSE PRINT:

TSA is updating the fee associated with the TSA Confirm.ID based on review and revision of relevant population estimates and costs. The Fee Report now includes a revised estimate of the population likely to use the TSA Confirm.ID program, the impact of the fee on individuals’ decisions to obtain an AFOID instead of paying the fee and TSA’s implementation costs, which affect the total fee necessary to recover the costs of the program. Using the updated estimates and a revised methodology that accounts for usage rates based on similar historical and implementation trends, TSA recalculated overall costs and determined that the fee necessary to cover the costs of the TSA Confirm.ID program is slightly more than $45.00.

And like the original fee justification report, we could not find the new report on the TSA website as promised either.

Last week, we sent the TSA some pointed questions about the huge increase in the fees, including asking for an explanation of how the price of their new ID service jumped from $18 to $45 in just 10 days, and to provide copies of both fee development reports that were missing from their website. We did not hear back.

But late in the day on December 4, an ID fairness organization reported that the TSA finally posted the fee development reports on the TSA website.

*MOUSE PRINT:

The November report estimated the program would cost $1.12-billion and would serve 65.3 million passengers over five years. Their December report, however, estimated the five-year cost at $475.7-mllion and that only 10.6 million passengers would utilize it.

The industrious among you are free to analyze both reports to see if the TSA has fairly evaluated the anticipated costs and usage.

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Delta and United Sued Over Window Seats Without Windows

In August, consumers filed two class action lawsuits — one against Delta and the other against United Airlines — for charging premium prices for window seats that did not have windows adjacent to them.

Delta wall where window would normally be

In the complaint against Delta, the consumer’s lawyer contends:

For many years Delta has knowingly and routinely sold windowless window seats to travelers. For instance various models of Delta’s Boeing 737 Boeing 757 and Airbus A321 aircraft are built with one or more seats that would traditionally have window but do not include one due to the placement of air conditioning ducts electrical conduits or other interior components. Delta operates hundreds of these planes which each make multiple flights every day. As result Delta has likely sold over million windowless window seats throughout the class period.

This poor consumer who brought the case, the complaint says, spent four-and-a-half hours on his flight from Atlanta to Orange County, California seated against a blank wall.

Apparently other airlines like American and Alaska that sell windowless window seats provide a warning during the reservation process disclosing that those seats have no actual window.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Delta competitors disclose no window view

In the United Airlines case, lawyers for the airline are asking that the case be dismissed, arguing that “window” refers to the position of the seat and not any potential view from that seat, saying in part:

“The use of the word ‘window’ in reference to a particular seat cannot reasonably be interpreted as a promise that the seat will have an exterior window view.

Rather, the word ‘window’ identifies the position of the seat — i.e., next to the wall of the main body of the aircraft.”

United’s lawyers also made a very clever argument when they asserted that the airline’s contract of carriage — the formal agreement between the airline and passengers — “does not contain any promise that seats in the window position of any aircraft will have exterior window views.”

*MOUSE PRINT:

We scoured their contract of carriage and in fact there is no disclosure at all in reference to window seats having or not having a view. There is also nothing in the contract of carriage that guarantees you won’t be sucked into the airplane’s toilet and be ejected from the plane somewhere over Kansas!

Safe travels. Happy Thanksgiving to all our loyal readers.

P.S. You can visit Aero Lopa to see window placements and seat maps for most major airplanes and carriers.