"Neil Williams" wrote in news:1170545651.563447.164620
@j27g2000cwj.googlegroups.com:

SNIP
Compared with this, Uncle Ken's Tube tourist tax isn't half as bad, as
at least anyone can put in a bit of effort and get an Oyster card to
avoid it. (The trick I use to avoid it is to buy all the tickets I
think I'm going to need in one go from the machines at Schiphol,
because they do take credit cards and will issue undated tickets
including to/from other stations).


Last time I was in Schipol, my mate's Electron Visa wouldn't work in the
machines for the train travel tickets to Amsterdam, and I had to buy his
and mine on my Switch Maestro.

On Feb 3, 11:37 pm, "Tristán White"
wrote:

Last time I was in Schipol, my mate's Electron Visa wouldn't work in the
machines for the train travel tickets to Amsterdam, and I had to buy his
and mine on my Switch Maestro.

I forgot about Electron - these aren't widely accepted for a lot of
things due to the requirement for online authorisation. ISTR the UK
TOCs don't accept them either.

Neil

On 3 Feb 2007 15:34:11 -0800, "Neil Williams"
wrote:

On Feb 3, 5:54 pm, "sweek" wrote:
It's coins or debit cards only, which is absolutely stupid.

Not only that, but *Maestro* debit cards only, which rules out about
50% of UK cards as about half the UK banks issue Visa debit cards,
which are generally processed as if they were a credit card for
international stuff.

They also take those Chipknip cards, but for peeps with no local bank
a/c coupled to a card this means a 6% surcharge if using prepaid
chipknip (53 euro for a 50 euro card time-limited). Prepaid is
necessary for foreign tourists and oiks like me having to eat in
remote canteens.

Fill up with coins for the NS machines or queue up to cough up the 50c
surcharge. It's always been a stubborn country for credit cards -
merchants never caught on to the benefits.

(The trick I use to avoid it is to buy all the tickets I
think I'm going to need in one go from the machines at Schiphol,
because they do take credit cards and will issue undated tickets
including to/from other stations).
I'll be trying that tomorrow morning! I'm getting erratic failures on
credit cards from those machines - get all the way through then
rejected.

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On Feb 4, 10:30 pm, Colum Mylod wrote:

I'll be trying that tomorrow morning! I'm getting erratic failures on
credit cards from those machines - get all the way through then
rejected.

Make sure you use the ones in the main ticket hall with a "proper"
credit card reader rather than the ones in the baggage hall that
don't. I have a less than 50% success rate with the latter, but a
100% success rate with the former - I suspect the latter don't read
the strip properly, or have a dodgy ISDN connection for doing the
authorisations - and if you're on KL 1558 from LCY I might see you
there

Neil

On 4 Feb 2007 15:17:36 -0800, "Neil Williams"
wrote:

On Feb 4, 10:30 pm, Colum Mylod wrote:

I'll be trying that tomorrow morning! I'm getting erratic failures on
credit cards from those machines - get all the way through then
rejected.

Make sure you use the ones in the main ticket hall with a "proper"
credit card reader rather than the ones in the baggage hall that
don't. I have a less than 50% success rate with the latter, but a
100% success rate with the former - I suspect the latter don't read
the strip properly, or have a dodgy ISDN connection for doing the
authorisations - and if you're on KL 1558 from LCY I might see you
there

I used the baggage hall ones ("bags expected on the belt 08:58"..
"bags on belt now"... pull the other one for 15 more mins, plenty of
time to find the Zonder Datum button). As you said, card 1 rejected,
card 2 accepted. Next time I'll use my Nectar first just to clean the
slot! Max 3 tickets which is a bummer since I needed 2 singles for Mon
and a return for more days. BD101 from LHR where "security" was backed
up before Boots (an indication of queuing up before the main entry
airside). Sigh.

LHR is a shabby chaotic dump. Luckily departure gate was 16 and not
the extra-secure 25a. For some reason the gods frown and we often get
double screened, laptops out again. Shoes off appears to be new to T1?

--
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On Feb 6, 11:18 am, Colum Mylod wrote:

BD101 from LHR where "security" was backed
up before Boots (an indication of queuing up before the main entry
airside). Sigh.

LHR is a shabby chaotic dump. Luckily departure gate was 16 and not
the extra-secure 25a. For some reason the gods frown and we often get
double screened, laptops out again. Shoes off appears to be new to T1?

Dunno, I avoid LHR like the plague as it is, as you describe, a dump.
Unless you live very near LHR, *all* the other options are better
(LCY, LTN, STN, LGW less so but still better than LHR).

Neil

On Feb 6, 1:04 pm, "Neil Williams" wrote:

Dunno, I avoid LHR like the plague as it is, as you describe, a dump.
Unless you live very near LHR, *all* the other options are better
(LCY, LTN, STN, LGW less so but still better than LHR).

Notably, the queue to get through security at LTN is 10 minutes at
most for the red-eyes (which it appears BD101 is), and that's the very
worst I've ever seen it. LCY had a queue on the day after the farce
in the summer, but since then it's back to straight through,
especially now they have 3 machines in operation with the expanded
screening area, though if I go through there it's normally nearer
8:30am. STN and LGW can be worse than LTN and LCY (notice the BAA
influence here) but not, I'm told, as bad.

Flying from City in the Fokker 50s (either VLM or KLM, not a lot to
choose between them) is a real pleasure - like flying used to be, it
could be said. Give it a go, though the downside is that punctuality
can be a bit poor at times.

Neil

Neil Williams wrote:


Flying from City in the Fokker 50s (either VLM or KLM, not a lot to
choose between them) is a real pleasure - like flying used to be, it
could be said. Give it a go, though the downside is that punctuality
can be a bit poor at times.

Neil

I find this is best way to get to NL from London. It's usually very low
in stress. The Fokkers are great fun to fly on. Like Neil said,
punctuality can suffer though, and pray you don't land in Haarlem - or
what feels like it, that runway is a LONG way from the terminal.
KLM stick you on the stands and bus you into Arrivals, VLM have their
own gate. It depends how far you want to walk!

Back onto the NS ticketing fiasco, there's a change machine cunningly
hidden in what's left of the booking office at Amsterdam Centraal. Last
time I was there no-one was using it, prefering, instead to queue for
the surcharged tickets.

What would be really nice, and I can't ever see this happening, is
reciprocal use of smrtcards across compatible networks. According to
Wiki, TfL and GVB are using MIFARE cards. I just like the idea using one
card where I can.
Mark.

On 6 Feb 2007 04:04:50 -0800, "Neil Williams"
wrote:

On Feb 6, 11:18 am, Colum Mylod wrote:

BD101 from LHR where "security" was backed
up before Boots (an indication of queuing up before the main entry
airside). Sigh.

LHR is a shabby chaotic dump. Luckily departure gate was 16 and not
the extra-secure 25a. For some reason the gods frown and we often get
double screened, laptops out again. Shoes off appears to be new to T1?

Dunno, I avoid LHR like the plague as it is, as you describe, a dump.
Unless you live very near LHR, *all* the other options are better
(LCY, LTN, STN, LGW less so but still better than LHR).

Assuming you *have* other (reasonable) options.

On Feb 7, 6:36 am, James Farrar wrote:

Assuming you *have* other (reasonable) options.

The destination being discussed was Amsterdam, to which there are
flights from *every* London airport. Plenty of other options.

Conveniently, most destinations are also accessible *via* Amsterdam,
though I'm led to believe the luggage handling isn't exactly optimal.

Neil