Chaos likely when they close ticket windows at King's Cross St. Pancras
 

In message , at 18:51:18 on Tue, 31 Mar
2015, Mizter T remarked:
Meanwhile those of us deciding whether or not to buy outboundary
travelcards have a complex matrix of decisions based on how much out
particular TOC marks up (or discounts) the price when added to a London
Terminals Ticket, and how that all shifts around when buying off-peak,
or with a railcard discount, and also attempting to predict whether one
will hit any of the caps is travelling ad-hoc.

If they can stick *all* of that into the contactless system and
guarantee to offer the best deal from the numerous potential
combinations, that would be great. But how the ordinary traveller is
supposed to audit that, I have no idea.

Ha, well I can't really see the above happening!

Very similar issues can easily result from ITSO cards making non-optimal
(for the passenger) choices about which tickets to use *today* when you
have various period returns 'in stock'.
--
Roland Perry

Chaos likely when they close ticket windows at King's Cross St. Pancras
 

Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 18:51:18 on Tue, 31 Mar 2015,
Mizter T remarked:
And they haven't got a clean track record so far with Oyster capping,
where all they promise[1] turns out to be to cap to the cheapest
Travelcard that would once upon a time have been available for purchase,
and not try to work out if a slightly cheaper travelcard plus one single
from that card's boundary, might have worked out less expensive.

They've perhaps wormed their way out of that corner now by pretty much
having a flat fare for all paper day travelacrds.

[1] Mizter T can correct me if I'm wrong.

You are wrong, sorry!

If you do enough journeys within say zones 1&2 to reach a cap, and then
make a journey out to zone 6 (e.g. last day being a tourist in London
then out to Heathrow), you'll be capped for z1&2 and then pay a z3-z6 journey on top.

My impression was that they'd charge you for a Z1-6 travelcard.

Isn't it supposed to automatically charge for the cheaper of the two
possible options?

Chaos likely when they close ticket windows at King's Cross St.Pancras
 

On 31/03/2015 19:29, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 18:51:18 on Tue, 31 Mar
2015, Mizter T remarked:
And they haven't got a clean track record so far with Oyster capping,
where all they promise[1] turns out to be to cap to the cheapest
Travelcard that would once upon a time have been available for purchase,
and not try to work out if a slightly cheaper travelcard plus one single
from that card's boundary, might have worked out less expensive.

They've perhaps wormed their way out of that corner now by pretty much
having a flat fare for all paper day travelacrds.

[1] Mizter T can correct me if I'm wrong.

You are wrong, sorry!

If you do enough journeys within say zones 1&2 to reach a cap, and
then make a journey out to zone 6 (e.g. last day being a tourist in
London then out to Heathrow), you'll be capped for z1&2 and then pay a
z3-z6 journey on top.

My impression was that they'd charge you for a Z1-6 travelcard.

OK, afraid your impression is erroneous. It does the clever thing rather
than defaulting to charge the most. I can vouch for this!

Chaos likely when they close ticket windows at King's Cross St. Pancras
 

In article ,
(Neil Williams) wrote:

On 2015-03-30 15:46:47 +0000, Matthew Dickinson said:

SWT and London Midland have recently withdrawn Oyster at their
ticket windows, so they can't value any commission that much.

Possibly confirmation that Oyster is going to become much more niche
- only really for those of limited means, tourists and children, as
everyone else will use contactless instead.

and for railcard holders.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Chaos likely when they close ticket windows at King's Cross St.
 

In article , (Mizter T) wrote:

On 31/03/2015 11:39, Neil Williams wrote:

On 2015-03-30 15:46:47 +0000, Matthew Dickinson said:

SWT and London Midland have recently withdrawn Oyster at their ticket
windows, so they can't value any commission that much.

Possibly confirmation that Oyster is going to become much more
niche [...]

Not really. LM offered Oyster at ticket windows at Watford Junction,
and poss at Euston? Nowhere else. SWT only offered Oyster at ticket
windows at a few stations such as Richmond and Wimbledon - it was
never anything near approaching universal.

I've read one suggestion that SWT's change might have been because
new ITSO compatible kit (for use with SEFT) that they're obliged to
support doesn't also support Oyster.

I don't think Putney has ever offered Oyster, potentially annoying with the
nearest Ticket Stop the other side of the Upper Richmond Road.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Chaos likely when they close ticket windows at King's Cross St. Pancras
 

On 2015-04-01 01:15:23 +0000, said:

and for railcard holders.

I'm not sure about Railcards. Presently London is the only oddity
where "PTE" tickets are discounted using them, so I could see that
being abolished. But if not I'd be surprised if it wasn't developed to
allow a contactless account to have a Railcard added.

Neil
--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the @ to reply.

Chaos likely when they close ticket windows at King's Cross St. Pancras
 

In article ,
(Neil Williams) wrote:

On 2015-04-01 01:15:23 +0000, said:

and for railcard holders.

I'm not sure about Railcards. Presently London is the only oddity
where "PTE" tickets are discounted using them, so I could see that
being abolished. But if not I'd be surprised if it wasn't developed
to allow a contactless account to have a Railcard added.

Uh-oh. A complete no-no and a quid-pro-quo for Oyster acceptance on NR in
London.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Chaos likely when they close ticket windows at King's Cross St. Pancras
 

On 2015-04-01 10:34:15 +0000, said:

Uh-oh. A complete no-no and a quid-pro-quo for Oyster acceptance on NR in
London.

In what manner is tying a Railcard to a credit card a complete no-no?

Neil
--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the @ to reply.

Chaos likely when they close ticket windows at King's Cross St. Pancras
 

On Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 04:25:47PM +0100, Theo Markettos wrote:

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.

If you've already spent umpty hundred pounds on getting to London and
accomodation in London, I suggest that worrying about the odd penny here
and there on your tube tickets is just not something that a rational
tourist will do. They'll care that they have a valid ticket, not that
they have the most efficient possible ticket.

To a lesser extent, the same applies to visitors from the provinces too,
especially infrequent visitors.

--
David Cantrell | even more awesome than a panda-fur coat

If you have received this email in error, please add some nutmeg
and egg whites, whisk, and place in a warm oven for 40 minutes.

Chaos likely when they close ticket windows at King's Cross St. Pancras
 

On Tue, Mar 31, 2015 at 07:49:34AM +0100, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 23:22:55 on Mon, 30 Mar
2015, Mizter T remarked:
Might as well just give up then, shut down the transport system, forget
about this modern living lark and go back to hunting on the savannah.
Though I imagine there'd still be one or two persistent voices around
the camp fire complaining long into the night about how things don't
work...
It would be interesting to know what it is about the cards which stops
them working.

Lack of a chain of agreement between TfL, some intermediary, the card
issuer, and the user. It's not a hardware or protocol issue and I think
it unlikely to be a software bug.

--
David Cantrell | Pope | First Church of the Symmetrical Internet

Disappointment:
n: No results found for "priapic dwarf custard wrestling".