It seems to be pretty common among European low-cost carriers. Not sure why it hasn’t taken off in the US, perhaps some reluctance to make passengers walk on the tarmac?
It’s possible to process transactions without a CVV, but it often costs slightly more due to the increased fraud risk. In the case of Uber Eats, they’ve presumably decided the increase in purchases from removing that friction makes up for the higher fee.
Unlike a lot of countries, the UK has free and near-instant bank transfers which seem to be a de facto standard for things like splitting bills with friends.
Incidentally I tried to use Venmo while in the US, but the app was geo-blocked so I couldn’t install it with a Google Play account set to the UK.
Interestingly, you might actually have that a bit backwards - North America is the only place I know of that doesn't have free (or with a fee of a few cents), near-instant bank transfers. It actually surprised me how backwards the banking system seemed the first time I was in the US (coming from West Africa).
I get the weirdest language bugs with Google:
- The info box on the right hand side of the search results intermittently shows up in German
- A suggested event (a football match) in the UK (where I am) had both team's names transliterated into Cyrillic
- An airport on Maps consistently shows up in either French or Finnish (or both!)
It's worth noting that ETOPS only applies to 2-engine aircraft; a 4-engine aircraft can travel outside the ETOPS-permitted areas as long as it has enough fuel.
When people say "ETPOS" these days, it's understood that they're talking about the maximum distance an aircraft of any size can fly from an airport - various regulators still apply such restrictions on aircraft with more than two aircrafts.
