Access Prepaid Worldwide launches BA multi-currency card

The partnership will allow British Airways Executive Club members to earn more Avios points, receiving one Avios point for every ￡1 loaded (or reloaded) onto the card. The travel card which is available now offers a more convenient way to make payments for Executive Club members who travel to different countries; as only one card is needed for payment across certain continents and currencies.

The Executive Club Multi-currency Cash Passport card works with the option to load up to seven currencies while locking in the exchange rate at a point in time. When used in market, the card intelligently selects the local currency to ensure the best rate. If the local currency is not on the card, funds are used from other currencies loaded to ensure the transaction is approved. The chip and PIN enabled BA Executive Club Multi-currency Cash Passport will hold seven currencies; EUR, GBP, USD, AUD, CAD, NZD, and ZAR.

Executive Club members who purchase a Multi-currency Cash Passport card and load to the value of ￡50 in the first two months, will be eligible to enter a prize draw. The prize package is for two people and will comprise of return flights to Rome, 4* accommodation, ￡500 spending money and 100,000 Avios points. The promotion runs until 31st July.

Steve Grigg, President at Access Prepaid Worldwide stated: "Building on our partnership with Avios, we are delighted to offer BA Executive Club customers our Multi-currency Cash Passport. Not only does it provide a safe and secure way to carry your currency overseas, but will also allow members to collect more Avios. With smart wallet technology, the ability to hold seven different currencies on one card and the Indoor Positioning System of our in-house team of friendly and expert staff 24/7, we look forward to seeing BA Executive Club customers reap the benefits of this card."

Marion King, UK & Ireland President at MasterCard said: "We are proud to be working rking with British Airways to offer their Executive Club customers the convenience to make safe and secure payments in many different countries, using one card. The MasterCard, Access and British Airways collaboration through the Executive Club Multi-currency Cash Passport product demonstrates our commitment to progress within the airline arena. Our subsidary Access Prepaid Worldwide have been instrumental in the innovation and market-leading solution which will make the Executive Club Multi-currency Cash Passport a huge success."

Ian Romanis, British Airways' Head of Loyalty, said: "We are always looking at new and innovative ways to improve the service we offer British Airways Executive Club customers and are sure the Multi-currency Cash Passport card will provide even greater flexibility when travelling overseas for business or leisure."

Prosecutors say DeRosa and an accomplice, 33-year-old John Eric Castleberry, went to Curtis and Gloria Plummers' home in the Le Flore County community of Poteau on Oct. 2, 2000, and convinced the couple to let them inside. DeRosa had worked at the couple's ranch.

Authorities say DeRosa and Castleberry stabbed the couple, who were in their 70s, and slashed their throats. Prosecutors say the duo made off with $73 and the Plummers' pickup truck, which was later found abandoned at a nearby lake.

Castleberry pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the couple's death and testified against DeRosa as part of a deal that included a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Although it's been almost 13 years since the victims were killed, their family members say they still feel the void their deaths created.

"I miss having a sister. I struggle when someone asks if I have a sister," Jo Milligan wrote in an April 24 letter to the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board. "Glo (or Gloria) was my big sister – my only sister – my only sibling. And Curt became my brother when I was 5 years old," Milligan wrote. "When shopping and I pass birthday cards, Valentine cards, etc., always the ones for `Sister' reach out to me. And I cry in the card aisle."

The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board last month voted 3-2 to reject DeRosa's request for his death sentence to be commuted to a life term. Speaking at the hearing via teleconferencing from prison, DeRosa apologized to the victims' family.

"I can't express how truly sorry I am for the pain I've caused the Plummer family," DeRosa said from the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. "I take full responsibility for their deaths. If not for me, they wouldn't have died that night."

DeRosa told the board he had turned to religion since his arrest and convictions and urged the board to set aside his death sentence so he could be a positive influence on the prison system's general population.

In recent years courts all over Britain have seen an increase in cases involving Romanian cashpoint gangs. The near-industrial scale of their activities makes the current crime trend of shoulder surfing — reading someone’s PIN over their shoulder at the cashpoint, then grabbing their card and fleeing — look amateurish in comparison.

 Last December Leonid Rotaru appeared at Taunton Crown Court in Somerset, charged with being part of a gang that got away with the details of 9,000 cards and a potential theft of ￡3million.

Chief Commissioner Virgil Spiridon, head of Romania’s cybercrime squad, told The Sun: “Gangs from Bacau travel mostly to the UK — they like it there. We have other gangs in Romania who operate in France, but the Bacau gangs go to Britain. Maybe it is because they have a good result there.”

But the city’s boom times may soon be over, according to Mr Spiridon. Over the past few months British police have travelled to Romania to meet their counterparts to devise a way of bringing the cashpoint crime spree to an end.