10 flu-fighting credit card tips
This articles from creditcards.com
Cards can carry germs, but you can be inhospitable
By Jay MacDonald
What’s your best money defense against the H1N1 swine flu? 
It just might be your credit card, provided you follow these flu-fighting safety tips.
Seasonal viruses tend to spread from person to person when the germs that cause them become airborne via coughing and sneezing. When you touch a surface that contains those germs and then touch your eyes, nose or mouth, those hitchhiking microbes can quickly start a block party in your body.
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Money is a common carrier of seasonal germs, which thrive in warm, relatively moist locations like your purse, trousers or jacket pockets. Because it is porous and changes hands frequently, currency can easily pick up and pass on germs. Why do you think they call it filthy lucre?
Enter credit cards to the rescue!
Sure, plastic can pick up germs just as readily as cash or third graders. The difference is, you can clean your credit cards quickly and easily. And with a little diligence, yours will be the only hands to come in contact with your sanitized credit cards.
“Any surface could contribute to the passing of the virus, which typically will live up to six to eight hours after contact has been made,” says Llelwyn Grant of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“We stress things like cover your nose and mouth with tissue when coughing or sneezing; wash your hands as frequently as possible, mainly with soap and water or alcohol-based hand cleaners; avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth because these are typically ways in which germs are spread; and stay home when you are sick,” Grand says.
Here are 10 flu-fighting credit card tips for healthy shopping this winter.
1. Clean the keypads
In terms of daily touches by sniffling strangers, point-of-sale terminal keypads and ATM keyboards rank right up there with doorknobs and stair rails as a Woodstock for germs. Even before you pull out your plastic, use an antibacterial wipe or tissue with alcohol-based sanitizer to de-bug the keypad or keyboard as well as your own hands and fingers before you start your transaction.
2. Swipe your own card
It’s fortuitous that the swipe-your-own-card movement, which initially grew out of concerns for card security, coincidentally fights germs as well. Because when you innocently hand your card to Florence the friendly checker, she will hand you back a card carrying not only her germs but unsavory hitchhikers from every debit card, credit card, bill and coin she has handled since her last break. Yuck!