I got the email message that it was time to renew. I clicked on the link, got a screen where it said to renew, and the next screen said to use PayPal. That was the **only **option. Why in the heck would there not be an option right there to click for using a credit card?
I don’t have PayPal, nor want it. In the past I renewed easily with my credit card.
So, i went to the “About This Message Board” forum and read some of the posts. I finally found one asking about renewal. Someone said to go ahead and click on PayPal, and there would be the option to pay by credit card through PayPal.
One post by Tuba Diva gave an incredibly complex list of things to do to be be able to pay by credit card.
Nice try, Tuba, by why in the world can’t the simple explanation to go ahead and click on PayPal and then use the card, be put right in the email about renewing? Or, as I said above, on that screen also have a link to click for credit card use.
I’ve spent about 30 minutes fiddling around to find how to renew without being a PayPal member. You could certainly make this easier when sending the emal about renewing.
Hoping that next year will be easier, because at my age I am unlikely to remember how to do this again. LD
Just click on the PayPal button and you will see an option to use your CC to renew. I just renewed my sub a week ago using my card.
When they changed to PP it was explained that there would be an option for CCs.
It is actually pretty easy. Just click on the button and all should be apparent.
You might have actually, you know, read the thread in ATMB that explained what to do if you want to pay by credit card. 
It has only once accepted my card, maybe 'cause I am a furriner.
PayPal always works easily and quickly though.
Since this is a question about the board, let’s move it to ATMB.
samclem Moderator, General Questions
Yeah, now I know, but is was definitely NOT apparent before clicking. All I saw was the one option: to use PayPal, and nothing else. Why would I have clicked on that when I did not want to use PayPal, as it said nothing about doing that wouuld let me use the credit card.
As I noted, I eventually found the answer in another forum, but it is kind of stupid to do it this way when it would be so easy to explan on that screen.
We don’t control the PayPal system and how they choose to present this to you is not anything we can change.
We have explained on multiple occasion in multiple threads that PayPal owns the company that processes credit card transactions and they branded that company with their name – so you have choice between PayPal and PayPal. Yes, it sounds stupid – and someone else might have thought to call it something else or find another way to make the situation more easily apparent to the casual user – but that was their choice.
I’m sorry this has been so confusing – it was not our choice to make it so.
Jenny
Thanks for the explanation. Hate to prolong this thread, but you do control the email notice that the subscription is about to expire, don’t you?
If there was a one-line explanation in that, it would avoid the vast mass of emails about it, nicht wahr? 
If Jerry or the other admins had the time or inclination, they could probably code a page integrating Paypal’s merchant APIs so as to present the ability to pay with a credit card without making it obvious that Paypal is the transaction processor.
Jerry probably could; us admins don’t have access to the technical side (nor do we want such). However, my understanding is that Jerry just plain doesn’t have the time.
I would take that as axiomatic, Dex. I speak from years of experience when I say that integrating into some payment gateways is extremely time consuming. Not only that, it can be extremely tedious. Each one has a different data set, each is constructed completely differently. Some require special propretary dll files that package data in a variety of ways, and some send simple data packets over SSL security pages. I have written many code sets integrating payment gateways, and there has not been a time that it was hassle-free. There is always some kind of surprise, some kind of contradiction or utter ambiguity in scant documentation, and some kind of registration process that is — I don’t even know how to say it — complicated and involves numerous time-sensitive correspondences by email. It can take a long long time to integrate one’s own familiar software into a payment gateway. But when you’re doing it with someone else’s (Jerry didn’t write vB) the task moves from merely daunting to dreadfully onerous. Jerry plain doesn’t have the time? You can be so sure of that, that you could state it as a postulate.
Tuba, there might be one small thing you could pretty easily do. There is a stickied thread titled Why can’t I subscribe using a credit card?
Well. That fact is, you CAN subscribe using a credit card. You’ve posted instructions on it numerous times.
I do understand why the sort of negative approach was taken by asking "…why can’t I …X? It makes it sound like a sort of FAQ title on a support page about bugs and difficulties with the software. So, from that point of view, the wording makes sense.
But it is also possible to title the thread something more like Here’s how to subsribe using a credit card.
I think the one in place now almost makes it sound like “you cannot subscribe using a credit card, and here’s why…”.
Beyond that, Jerry has an aversion to customizing/vB hacks – he’s long been of the opinion that any alterations to the system are useless as they disappear with any upgrade and have to be rebuilt again and what’s the use?
In our over 10 years here I can’t think offhand of any real hack Jerry has put into the system. While you should never say “always” and never say “never” I would put the chances that Jerry would look up from his already overfull plate and spend time on something like this to be somewhere between slim and none.