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Travel Tips: Don’t Use Citicards
I look out on that travel horizon, and I see a long road between now and August for this Sacramento real estate agent. That means I will most likely have a lot of work to finish before the end of summer. August will be my next vacation. I do not look forward to the end of summer because summer is my favorite season, even though I live in Sacramento, one of the hottest cities in America. As one of my clients once said, if Sacramento’s spring weather carried through into summer, it would be just like living in Carmel and our homes would cost a million bucks or more. Well, not quite because it’s a 100 miles to the ocean, not 100 yards.
For my clients, though, the fact that I have no vacations planned for a long, long time is good news for them. Although, with WiFi available almost everywhere, yes, even on a remote atoll in the middle of French Polynesia like Rangiroa, it’s not always evident if I am in town or if I am gone; I still pay attention to my real estate business and my clients. Unless I tell them I am out of town, my clients believe I am always in Sacramento.
You know who does know when I am gone? My credit card companies. I have learned, for example, to call Citicards and tell them when I am going and where I am going. To give them advance notice of my whereabouts. VISA and MasterCard especially (I don’t know about American Express or Discover) are cracking down on credit card fraud. They track individual accounts, so if they spot unusual activity they might not authorize the transaction without speaking to the customer.
A tip for travel: Always call your credit card company before you go out of town if you plan to use your credit card elsewhere. Tell them when you are leaving and when you will return.
Yet, that doesn’t always work, and I am living proof. Even though I called Citicards and told them where I was going on vacation, when I checked out of the St. Regis Resort in Bora Bora, the credit card company flagged my account and froze it. Sometimes, it’s not a good idea to have Big Brother watching you. It’s kind of creepy. Especially after you’ve put them on notice.
This is the second time Citicards has done this to me, which means I will no longer use their card for major purchases. The line has to be drawn somewhere. They say they are protecting you but both you and I know whose butt they are protecting.
Photo: by Elizabeth Weintraub, cruise ship in Papeete
Happy New Year From Bora Bora
Our beach view welcomes a Happy New Year from Bora Bora.
This is the day to begin learning where the lucky 1 and 3 keys are located on the keyboard and how to write 2013 on my checks. That still leaves the other two components of the date to mess up, though: the day and the month. I often get all 3 wrong. I have no concept of time. Probably because I have no children, no little benchmarks to tell me how old I am getting and how much time has already elapsed. Not to mention, being a Sacramento real estate agent means every day is fun, exciting, challenging and new. So why make a New Year’s resolution?
Why not resolve every day to do your best? To make the changes daily in your life that bring you the most rewards and happiness because if you’re not happy, what is the point of wallowing in unhappiness? What purpose does misery serve? Who needs adversity? If you’re not happy where you live, then make plans to move. Call a real estate agent.
How would you like to be Michael Schoonewagen, the general manager of the St. Regis at Bora Bora? We enjoyed cocktails with Mr. Schoonewagen last night, alongside 100 other guests at the St. Regis as we kicked off New Year’s Eve celebrations. Mr. Schoonewagen says he gets to move to a different country every few years. We approached him after his introductions and speech to hand him a card. On the card, we commended our butler, Kostantin, and our room service fellow, Sebastian, both of whom has provided exemplary service during our visit.
My husband started to say that he felt it was important to share a different kind of voice, apart from those who complain, but I’m not sure it came across the way it was intended because Mr. Schoonewagen responded as though my husband was saying the St. Regis must receive a lot of complaints. Mr. Schoonewagen began to defend that allegation. See, this is the problem when one person speaks two languages against a person who cannot. But what was interesting was the happiness ratio. Mr. Schoonewagen said 97% of the guests at the St. Regis are very happy. All of the time.
Even though, as he pointed out, there is no cinema, no theatre, no entertainment on the level to which we are accustomed in the states. I grabbed Mr. Schoonewagen’s arm and asked him to please shush up and stop filling my husband’s head with those thoughts. But it was too late. My husband had already figured it out. He’s a smart guy. It’s no secret that there is no city life here in French Polynesia on Bora Bora. So, it just means one needs to have two homes, that’s all. If you have to live in a city. As Mr. Schoonewagen pointed out, Bora Bora is only 5 hours by air from Hawaii. This time next year, you could be saying Happy New Year from Bora Bora
Another Bank of America FHA Short Sale
You can tell me the buyer is canceling the short sale, and when I’m looking out on this view, I’m only half as annoyed as I normally would be. This is the view from my balcony at the St. Regis in Bora Bora. They put up the orange cones to keep the drunken jet ski drivers from running over naked swimmers. Not that it does any good. When jet skiers get disoriented, there is no telling where they might end up. Just like buyers of short sales. Hard to say. They start out saying they want to buy a short sale but then when approval arrives, lots of them tend to freak out.
As though it’s all fun and games while they are waiting for short sale approval. They can run around and boast to friends: “Look at me, I am buying a short sale. Hey, I have a lampshade on my head.” But when it comes time to put pedal to the metal, some of them just can’t do it. Is it because they’ve had too long to think about it? In a regular escrow, they would be closed within 30 to 45 days, not sitting in limbo waiting for short sale approval. Is it because they forgot they were in escrow? It’s not like there is constant activity that they can see, unless they follow updates on my website.
In one escrow, the dreaded Bank of America FHA short sale escrow, we’ve been working on the file since April. That’s not unusual for a Bank of America FHA short sale. It’s par for the course. Other lenders can process FHA short sales in a normal time period, but that has not been the case with Bank of America. We closed 2 or 3 other B of A FHA short sales recently, and each was almost a year-long process. Because getting the approval from HUD is difficult for B of A. And by the time the bank analyzes the offer, another 4 months have passed and the ATP has expired. So, they start over. Those falling over “for sale” signs in people’s yards are due more to the lengthy process for a Bank of America FHA short sale than from buyers canceling.
Fortunately, Bank of America is moving its FHA short sales to Equator shortly. We hope this happens by its target date of February. It will be a joyful day to celebrate when that happens.
But in this particular Bank of America FHA short sale that we’ve been working on since April and just received approval on 5 days ago — well, the buyer up and canceled yesterday. The agent says it was due to the “whole house inspection” as though we need some kind of excuse. We don’t need no stinkin’ excuse. Just send the cancellation and muddle on with your life. We will sell this home again, and this time to a serious buyer. Or, so this Sacramento short sale agent continues to hope.
Arrival at The St. Regis at Bora Bora
Ants, teeny-tiny, itty-bitty ants are crawling around my keyboard. They are zipping in and out, over and around. They are doing somersaults in delight. And I’m just thankful they are not those little lizards. My husband says I should AEL — Always Expect Lizards. But they still freak me out when they show up unexpectedly. It’s not like they crawl with a purpose. They are not determined lizards. They change their mind in a flash about the direction they are headed and all of a sudden, there they are, looking up at you quizzically, like a bank short sale negotiator who doesn’t bat an eyelash over taking 6 months to process a short sale.
Today we are at the St. Regis at Bora Bora. Air Tahiti does not fly directly to Bora Bora from Rangiroa, although it does fly from Bora Bora to Rangiroa. I was told by a tour operator in the islands that our vacation needed to “progress,” to get substantially better, which is why we could not fly the other way around. Which meant to get to Bora Bora from Rangiroa, we needed to return to Papeete on Tahiti, retrieve our luggage, and then go back through Security to board a flight to Bora Bora.
I did not see how it could get any better than Rangiroa. Our overwater bungalow at Kia Ora was stunningly beautiful, modern, and it had just been remodeled. What could possibly be better than looking out on the warm sapphire waters and endless horizon? First, there is no bumpy van ride from the airport to the hotel. In Bora Bora, you are transported via a yacht. Second, I can’t say the view at Bora Bora is any better. On the one side we have the island, and on the other we have the mountains, and there is nothing inherently wrong with that view. The water is a pale pearly greenish blue. Although, you can see a portion of your neighbor’s bungalow, which you could not at Kia Ora. I feel homesick for Rangiroa already. I felt a strong connection to that atoll.
However, our overwater bungalow villa at St. Regis at Bora Bora holds no candle to Kia Ora. We have our own bedroom, which is enormous, lots of island thatch, wood, bamboo, ceiling fans, cathedral ceiling and sliding doors to the deck. A separate bath is also enormous with a walk-in open shower and a rainshower head as big as a Super Bowl pizza, situated next to a sunken and jetted tub, plus wood floors, dual stone sinks. There is requisite glass-in-the-floor windows, too. But we also have a separate living room / dining room. We had to take a golf cart shuttle to get here from the restaurant last night because it is so far away from the lobby. I bet it’s a 3/4 mile. Most guests grab bicycles. But a nice unexpected feature is the fact we have our own butler. He offered to unpack for us last night.
Would you let a butler unpack your suitcases?
Our butler motioned toward the table where a tray of chocolates and a box of chocolates and a bottle of champagne awaited consumption. But the ants had gotten to them first. That’s what we got for going to dinner before settling in. I am thankful that my cold has pretty much cleared up, and our sunburn pain has been minimized somewhat. Not enough that we could, say, enjoy a Swedish massage, but we’re here for two more weeks. Stuff can change.
