MSE News: Contactless payments scheme launches on the London Underground

Pincher

zerog wrote: »

In Hong Kong, the transport operator regularly publishes a table of fares which are cheaper by cash than by smartcard - because they don't accept 10 and 20 cent coins, cash fares are rounded to the nearest 50 cents but smartcard fares are exact.

The Octopus card. What they don't tell you is if you have more than HK$500 on the card, they will refuse to refund the balance at the airport. I assume it's to do with money laundering. E.g. you buy a card using Chinese RMB, then get the refund in HK$, which is convertible into western currency.


I was spending so quickly on the first day, and had to top-up twice, that I just put in the maximum, which was about HK$950. Had around HK$700 left when I got to the airport (you can use the Octopus for the Airport Express). Still have it. Now I have to spend £500 to get to Hong Kong again to use up £70!

Pincher

chattychappy wrote: »

Very tourist unfriendly. But TfL don't care. Plenty of other countries have buses that can handle cash. TfL said handling cash cost them millions. Says more about their efficiency - plenty of other cities manage to run buses which accept cash.

The system kind of assumes tourists have Wave and Pay credit or debit cards, which is rather a bizarre assumption. If they did a survey in Heathrow, what do people expect the percentage to be?


I vote 5%.


If they then actually tested the cards, what percentage will actually work? 0.1%?


If you like conspiracies, what about Hailo?
If you had a credit card, you can still call for a cab.
It would be too obvious if they painted Hailo ads on the buses that you COULDN'T get on.

durelli_tyres

Now that we no longer need Oyster cards and a credit balance on our TFL account can we ask for the balance to be refunded?

If we register our contactless card on the TFL site we get all the advantages that we add with Oyster, but get to keep our money in our account and not that of TFL.

cheers

D

janeycross

Hubby just seem this in the press: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-29919075

Does this really mean Contactless is cheaper than Oyster?

Thoughts welcomed.

Jeff_Bridges_hair

janeycross wrote: »

Hubby just seem this in the press: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-29919075

Does this really mean Contactless is cheaper than Oyster?

Thoughts welcomed.

No it doesnt. I was just reading about this on this website and the poster who made the thread has shown how it is very very wrong.