On 30/03/2015 11:13, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 10:25:09 on Mon,
30 Mar 2015, Theo Markettos remarked:


But in the case of King's Cross, they take some trouble on Eurostar to
push sales of Oyster cards, and TfL also encourage their use by having
cash fares which are many times that of the Oyster fare. So I'm
baffled as to why the queues are so long, but it's a fact that they
are.

I always assume that things being sold on trains, aeroplanes and in
baggage reclaim halls are sold to a captive audience at some massive
markup.

I don't think that's true of these kinds of tickets, at least for the
first two, and many of the permanent booths at airports. The prices are
more likely to be published in advance, for you to get the correct
amount of change, etc.

I agree with that - for the UK at least.


After all Ryanair offering me a transfer to central London are not
doing it out of the goodness of their heart,

They'll be getting a commission, but not necessarily any more than an
agent at the airport who also has to fund extra staff and premises.

The agent at the airport in the case of Stansted Express is StEx itself
- they've a counter after customs for arrivals.

That doesn't nullify your point at all though - as a 'city transfer'
operator getting the airlines to do some of the selling for you is a
plus, with the bonus that even if people don't buy on board they might
have been familiarised with your name, or at least with the options
available to them.


and I'd probably end up with an First Anytime
Return on Terravision to Irkutsk Broadway when actually I could get a
Network Card super-offpeak to Liverpool St instead.

Apart from a CDR, the only tickets on that flow are Anytimes.

There's GroupSave, which could be useful, and isn't sold by the
airlines. (There's first class too - ditto. The WebDuo and Business Plus
fares don't count in this instance as they're only available online, not
from the ticket office.)


What's needed is a flyer, available in multiple languages, explaining
the basics of the system:

1) are you travelling within London?
2) do you have a contactless payment card? or
3) get an Oyster card and put some momey on it
4) touch in on buses, touch in and out on trains.

(You can begin to see the problems as you then have to explain "London",
how much money you need to put on the ticket etc etc.)

Is my "Bank of China" card a contactless payment card? What about
American Express?

Indeed; even the TfL website isn't sure exactly which foreign or prepay
contactless cards they accept.

It's because they don't know - some work and some don't, it really does
depend. A customer could ask their bank of course, but I wouldn't rely
on them getting the correct answer.

The alternative would be for TfL to simply bar all non-UK contactless
payment cards, even though the majority would probably work. What would
a hypothetical Mr R. Perry, head of TfL ticketing, do? (Bear in mind
that 'head of ticketing' is not the same thing as the Commissioner for
Transport, the Mayor, the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the SoS for
Transport!)