Right now, let's say good morning to the host of Rich on Tech on KFI. It's a very own Rich DeMuro. Good morning, Rich.
I thought you were going to say, speaking of underachievers, welcome Rich.
No, no, I don't think you are. I mean, look at you. You've got a syndicated radio show, you're right here on KFI, You're on KTLA all the time, and you give us great advice.
Well, let's hope we can do some of that today. We want to talk about first.
I want to talk about Amazon Primes new perk.
Yeah, so this is they announced this. I think it was like last year perhaps, but now it's available to sign up for. You can now if you're a Prime member save ten cents a gallon at about seven thousand BP, which I don't think we have around here Amaco, which I don't think we have around here, but we do have AMPM stations. So basically, if you're a Prime member, you go to AMPM, you can now save ten cents a gallon. This is an ongoing perk from Amazon, part
of your Prime account. Amazon says that members, if they drive the average national average, they can save up to seventy dollars a year, which is half the cost of a Prime membership. The thing you have to do is go to Amazon dot com slash Fuel Savings and you basically just link up your your Prime account to this new system and there you go.
Okay, So here's my question. If I have a credit card on my Prime account and AMPM gives you that, you know, you pay less if you use a debit card. Are you using a credit card or can you link your debit card to it?
It looks like you can link any cards so you can pay. You can. Actually you have to sign up through this app. I've not done it myself, so I don't know, but I would guess that whatever card you want to use, you can use. Remember when AMPM r code didn't take credit cards, like you had to like use that weird machine in the middle like anyway. But yeah, so a lot of people have been debating the merits of this program on my social media, saying, you know,
maybe Costco is lit a better deal. You know, Ralph's has their rewards. So I think the bottom line is like, do what's best for you. So I use that upside app when i'm you know, when I fill out my wife's car at the pump and it does save some money cost go. You know, if you don't mind waiting in line, you can save money there. So you know, it's just another option available.
I love options. I love options. Okay, So I am going to be traveling myself, so I was particularly interested in, uh, this one that you had you had offered up, and that was that a lot of people are planning their vacations for the summer, and some people are going to go overseas, and you know, we were just talking about this last week. How are we going to avoid massive fees on our phones?
Yes, and it's a lot easier than it used to be. This is my popular demand. I guess a lot of people are traveling asking me rich, how do I use my phone but not pay you know, astronomical roaming charges. And so here's the deal. My first, uh, my first item of tip is call your carrier. You may have
what's called travel days banked on your plan. If you're paying like the highest plan, the ninety dollars a month plan whatever it is for unlimited for your carrier, A lot of times you get a travel day every month included in your plan. So last time I went to Europe, I had like twelve days banked. I was there for a couple of days, didn't have to you know, it all was free basically, So that's my number one tip.
Then if you just want to keep your current plan and roam over there, EIGHTE and T charges twelve dollars a day, Verizon twelve dollars a day. T Mobile. Most plans include roaming that can add up fast, So I only recommend that if you're there for like, you know, three four days whatever. If you're there longer, I like what's called an e sim and this is basically a temporary plan you buy from an app. You don't need a physical SIM card. I like the app called Aerlow.
You can activate that right from your phone. You can get like thirty days of usage with thirty gigabytes for like thirty dollars. So that's a very cost effective way to do it. The problem is your phone has to be unlocked usually for that to happen. For you'd be able to do that, So check that. And then if you don't want to do any of that stuff, just turn off your cellular, turn on Wi Fi and just
look for Wi Fi hotspots. You can use WhatsApp to stay connected I message, just make sure that you're calling and texting over Wi Fi is activated before you leave the US.
I think that's what I did last time. It was so long. I haven't traveled since before the pandemic. I think our last trip to Africa, I think we just turned off cellular and just texted.
Yeah, And for most people, look, there's so much Wi Fi everywhere, as long as you don't, you know. And the other thing I would say is download the maps. I'm gonna put this in my blog post at richontech dot TV. Download the maps for the location you're going to. So both Apple Maps and Google Maps let you download the entire map for the area you're going to. So even if you didn't have cellular, you could still navigate around using the offline maps. So that's a good idea too.
And my other tip, one more tip, because this burned me many years ago. I went to China and I left my dropbox on and all my pictures uploaded. And I'm not kidding, I came back to like a thousand dollars bill. I had to, like, I have to negotiate with AT and T to like get that down. But yeah, turn off automatic backups or make sure they're just on Wi Fi.
Okay, that's great. Great, that's going to be so helpful and helpful to lots of you guys who are going to be traveling hopefully this summer. One last thing and that is good news for parents regarding Roadblocks.
Yeah, well, I don't think there's any good news at all ever with Roadblocks. I'm not a fan, but I will I will report on this impartially.
Okay.
Basically, Roadblocks is working with Google to do these video ads that you can watch instead of buying stuff. So let's say your kid. You know, if your kid is playing Robox, they are always bugging you for something, right, some sort of in app purchase. Well, now they can watch these ads for thirty seconds and instead of buying
the item, they will get it gifted for free. So it's kind of a cool idea because most parents will be like, hey, I'm fine with that, you know, as long as the ads are okay, it's going to cost them less.
Okay, but I you know what, when I play games, I have to watch ads. So kids should have to learn to do that too, unless they want to pay for it with their own money.
Yeah, exactly. Most of the time, it's mom and dad paying.
Yeah, I'm such a hard ass, all right. Rich DeMuro the host of Rich on Tech right here on KFI Saturdays from eleven to two. You can follow him at rich on Tech. You can watch him on KTLA, and you can also check out his website where he puts all this stuff that we talk about. It's Rich on Tech dot TV. Thank you so much, Rich, jamiro all.
Right, Amy, talk to you soon.
All right.