Mizter T wrote:

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

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

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.

Yes, but if you go to Heathrow you might find Heathrow Express is promoted a
wee bit more than the Piccadilly Line. Likewise in other places they may
heavily promote one method over another - be it 'express' trains over the
local bus/train that's almost as quick (cf Gatwick Express v Southern/FCC),
shuttle minibuses over the subway, or a maglev that only goes half the way
(though that was worth doing once as a tourist attraction).

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.

They never present you with a table of options though, it's always 'travel
brand, the superlative way to the city". The best I found was an
airport with three different bus lines with three different durations and
prices - at least there was a list.

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.)

Who says I want to go to city centre station, or that I'm not buying a
child/senior/soldier/goat ticket instead? Tickets sold this way are
inevitably one-size-fits-all, and frequently it doesn't.

The flip side is places where the airport is just another stop on the public
transport network and tickets are available from every friendly
neighbourhood kiosk - of which there isn't at the airport. (See also
cashless TfL buses at Heathrow)

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.

For the record, I went to a TfL station in December and discovered I'd
forgotten my Oyster. Of the three UK contactless cards in my pocket, only
one worked. None of them were anything out of the ordinary.

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!)

TfL ticketing is just complicated, that's the fact of the matter. Whether
it's 'too' complicated, I don't know. However it isn't designed to be
friendly to visitors, at least visitors who want to understand what's going
on rather than just throwing money at TfL and hoping for the best.

Theo