On 03/01/2014 10:25, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 12:13:42
on Thu, 2 Jan 2014, remarked:
If TfL are expecting your average foreign tourist to start paying for
tickets using "pay wave" credit cards I think that they are tilting
at windmills
You only have to look at the number of suitably "qualified"
individuals who don't go through the self service passport check (at
no risk and sometimes considerable time cost) to see how "frightened"
the average person is of such technology
Also built-in problems for families travelling:
"Like Oyster, you can only pay for one person per journey with a
contactless payment card; if you are travelling in a group, each
person will have to use a separate contactless payment card or
other method of payment."
However, they have either withdrawn the restriction on using foreign or
prepay cards (and many tourists will have foreign prepay cards) or
they've just stopped mentioning it.
How many (if any) prepaid cards have contactless enabled? I suspect they
won't have it, as contactless transactions are all about being
super-quick, 'touch and go', without time for online authorisation.
Enabling contactless would be a risk for the issuer - existing prepaid
cards have a zero floor limit (i.e. automatic online authorisation), for
example.
Now maybe but the use of such cards will grow over time.
Have they met the deadline set when first introduced [Dec 2012]:
"From the end of 2013, contactless payment cards will be accepted on the
Tube, Docklands Light Railway, London Overground and trams."
I'm not looking forward to that because it would seem it obsoletes my
"Onepulse Barclay/Oyster" - the system charges neither rather than one
or both, apparently. Will they be sending me an automatic refund for the
stored amount?
"the system charges neither rather than one or both, apparently" -
really? I'd expect it to continue acting as an Oyster card when
presented to an Oyster validator (though I'd also expect the product to
be discontinued soon - when-ish does your card expire, if you don't mind
me asking?).